^«^1 


■ 


STUDIES  IN  POETRY 


STUDIES  IN  POETRY 


BY 


STOPFORD    A.    BROOKE 


(Y'tUY.-Z^   ) 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

Of 


New  York  :   G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

London  :    DUCKWORTH  £sf  CO. 

1907 


m£m 


All  rights  reser'ved 


Edinburgh :  T.  and  A.  Constable,  Printers  to  His  Majesty 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

WILLIAM  BLAKE i 

SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 55 

INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  TO  THE  SHELLEY  SOCIETY      1 1 5 
THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  .  .  .  .144 

EPIPSYCHIDION 176 

KEATS  .......       202 


OF  TH£ 

UNtVERSlTY 

OF 


WILLIAM   BLAKE 


William  Blake  was  born  November  28,  1757,  in 
Broad  Street,  Carnaby  Market,  London.  His  father 
was  a  respectable  hosier,  and  would  have  brought  up 
the  boy  to  his  own  business.  But  Art  had  laid  on 
him  her  overmastering  hand,  and  he  was  her  faith- 
ful servant  all  his  life  long.  His  art,  as  painter  and 
engraver,  would  be  a  worthy  subject,  but  it  is  not 
mine.  What  his  lyrical  poetry  was  as  literature, 
and  its  relation  to  the  general  movement  of  poetry 
in  England,  is  the  subject  of  this  essay. 

He  became  a  mystic,  a  poet,  a  designer  in  colour 
and  in  black  and  white,  and  he  considered  himself 
to  be  something  of  a  prophet.  He  was  a  prophet 
as  a  poet  is  a  prophet.  He  touched  matters  which 
lay  on  the  outskirts  of  the  realm  of  pure  poetry — 
political,  social,  and  religious — but  he  touched  them 
with  a  poet's  passion.  He  belongs  to  those  poets  who, 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution  in  France  in 
1789,  set  forward  in  verse  some  of  the  revolutionary 
ideas.  Neither  class,  caste,  nor  privilege  existed  for 
Blake.  Kings  and  the  aristocrats  who  supported 
the  class  of  kings  represented  by  Louis  xiv.,  Blake 
denounced  as  villains.     He  had  an  equal  abhorrence 


2  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

for  the  priests,  who  used  their  power  and  their  craft 
to  hamper  the  natural  life  and  the  souls  of  men,  and 
for  the  kind  of  religion  they  taught.  His  passion  for 
human  liberty  was  intense,  even  to  extremes.  His 
instinct  of  the  oneness  of  mankind  in  the  Eternal's 
eyes  was  equally  intense.  Gray  had  not  long  been 
dead  when  this  phenomenon  arose  ;  yet  I  do  not 
suppose  a  wider  gulf  on  these  matters  could  be 
than  that  which  separated  Blake  from  Gray.  One 
would  say  a  century  divided  the  Songs  of  Innocence 
from  the  Elegy  ^  even  though  a  faint  breath  of  the 

I  revolution- views  of  man  sighs  through  the  Elegy. 
Blake  then  represents,  in  part  of  his  work,  the  new 
spirit  of  the  Revolution  which  was  coming  on  the 
earth,  and  of  course  into  poetry.  At  this  point  he 
stands  alongside  of  Cowper  and  Burns,  but  much 
more  resolutely,  much  more  consciously,  much 
more  sternly  than  they,  is  he  of  the  Revolution. 

In  other  ways,  more  immediately  connected  with 
the  history  of  poetry  in  England,  he  was  also  a 
forerunner ;  striking  into  the  light  and  air  high  up 
on  the  mount  Parnassus  new  fountains  of  song 
which  were  in  the  future  to  become  rivers  of  fresh 
emotion,  thought,  and  imagination.  It  is  always 
fascinating  to  stand  at  the  birthplace  of  a  great 
stream  and  think  of  the  splendour,  use,  and  comfort 
it  has  been  to  the  children  of  men  ;  and  the  streams 
of  fresh  song  which  Blake  smote  from  the  rock 
have,  like  one  of  the  noble  rivers,  brought  joy, 
festivity,  awakening,  and  novelty  to  the  imagination 
and  the  soul  of  man. 


S^r^^€J~tSb.eLL.^jnUe^ide, 


C>fh>p/v?YJ  .    i.f^roohe 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


/ 

WILLIAM  BLAKE  /  3 

His  earliest  work  preceded  the  work  of  Cowper 
and  Burns.  The  Poetical  Sketches  were  written  and 
finished  by  1777.  But  they  were  not  published  till 
1783.  His  Songs  of  Innocence  were  set  forth  in 
lyS^yhis  Songs  of  Experience  in  1794.  Even  the  last, 
then,  preceded  the  first  volume  of  Wordsworth's 
Lyrical  Ballads  by  four  years.  The  new  elements  he 
brought  into  poetry  were  taken  up  by  Wordsworth 
and  thrown  for  the  first  time  into  clear  definiti^ 
and  challengeable  form  in  the  Lyrical  Ballads. 
Wordsworth  did  not  take  them  from  Blake.  They 
arose  spontaneously  in  his  soul.  They  were  in  the 
air.  Nor  did  Wordsworth  represent  all  the  new 
aspects  of  thought  and  emotion  Blake  created  in 
the  world  of  song.  The  political,  religious,  and 
mystic  elements  of  Blake's  poetry  were  felt  by 
other  poets  than  Wordsworth,  and  put  into  clearer 
form  than  Blake  gave  to  them.  But  Blake  sketched 
them  all,  he  began  the  picture  which  others  finished. 
He^is  like_one  born  out  of  due  time. 

At  the  age  of  twelve  he  began  to  write  verse, 
and  he  continued  to  amuse  his  leisure  with  it  till 
he  was  twenty  years  old.  He  threw  these  poems 
together  in  1777,  and  at  Flaxman's  instance  pub- 
lished them  in  1783  in  a  volume  entitled  Poetical 
Sketches.  It  is  a  little  collection,  and  it  was  lost  on 
its  production.  But  small  as  it  is,  it  is  full  of 
curious  interest — a  landmark  so  distinct  that  it 
arrests  the  historian  of  poetry.  It  was  partly 
original,  as  I  have  already  said,  and  on  its  original 
elements  I  shall  afterwards  dwell.      On  the  other 


4  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

hand,  it  is  partly  imitative,  for  no  poet  can  alto- 
gether escape  from  the  past;  but  its  imitation  was 
not  of  the  poetry  that  preceded  it,  but  of  that 
of  the  Elizabethans.  In  that  imitation  it  was  some- 
what at  one  with  Blake's  immediate  predecessors. 
Gray,  ColUns,  Warton,  and  the  rest  of  them  had 
initiated  a  reversion  towards  the  Elizabethan  poets, 
a  vivid  interest  in  Shakespeare,  and  a  direct  imita- 
tion of  Spenser.  These  new  interests  had  been  grow- 
ing for  some  time,  and  Blake  shared  in  them.  They 
accorded  with  his  nature,  which  itself  belonged  to 
the  childhood  of  the  world.  The  work  of  Gray 
in  these  matters  was  transition  work.  It  did  not 
strike  deep  into  the  future  ;  and  it  is  marked  by 
the  trained  skill,  the  determined  artifice,  and  the 
careful  composition  of  the  Augustan  poets.  Blake, 
on  the  other  hand,  did  no  transition  work  of  this 
kind  at  all.  He  went  straight  back  in  this  book,  and 
at  a  single  leap,  for  his  models,  to  the  Elizabethans. 
He  ignored  the  whole  of  the  critical  and  artificial 
school.  His  language  is  the  language  of  a  wild  and 
uncultivated  country  ;  his  verse  is  rough,  unobedient 
to  metrical  laws.  What  excellence  there  is,  is 
attained  by  dint  of  Nature,  not  of  Art.  It  is  a 
boy  who  is  writing,  with  a  boy's  ignorance  and 
carelessness  of  rules  of  art,  with  also  a  boy's  daring 
originality.  He  adds  to  his  imitative  work  con- 
stituents which  did  not  belong  to  the  Elizabethans. 
Its  air  is  different  from  that  which  Spenser  and 
Shakespeare  breathed.  .  I^  draws  into- k  some--43f 
the^glenaents^of  theLJktlJrg^  Tt  belongs,^ex£rLin  its 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  5 

imitations  of  the  Elizabethans,   to   the  nineteenth 
century,  not  to  the  eighteenth.     This  is  its  special 

One  of  the  poems  in  the  Sketches  is  an  imitation 
of  Spenser.  Others  of  his  time  had  also  done  this, 
but  Blake  did  it  with  an  individuality  which  not 
only  modernised  the  Elizabethan  way  of  thinking 
and  feeling,  but  also  changed  in  every  stanza  the 
Spenserian  metre.  Two  are  ballads,  and  ballads 
were  a  fashion  of  the  day,  set  on  foot  by  the  pub- 
lication of  the  Percy  Ballads.  But  those  that  were 
written  now  were  sentimental,  graceful  compositions, 
like  Goldsmith's  Edwin  and  Angelina,  Blake's 
ballads  clash  out  rude,  untamed,  and  bloodstained 
verses ;  their  note  is  that  of  the  most  super- 
natural and  savage  of  the  Border  Ballads.  Gray 
would  have  read  them  with  dismay,  and  turned 
from  them  with  contempt.  Indeed,  they  are  not 
good,  but  still  they  were  quite  different  from  what 
had  gone  before  them  ;  and  the  something  different 
in  them  went  on,  to  become,  in  other  hands,  a  new 
power  in  song. 

A  freshly  awakened  interest  in  the  Elizabethan 
drama  belongs  also  to  this  time  when  Blake  was 
young.  But  it  was  chiefly  a  critical  interest.  No 
one  cared  to  write  in  the  manner  of  these  dra- 
matists ;  no  one  could.  But  Blake  did.  He  took 
up  the  lyre  which  had  fallen  from  Marlowe's  hands 
in  the  dramatic  fragment  of  Edward  IIL^  but  the 
sound  of  it  was  broken  and  inharmonious  in  com- 
parison with  the  sonorous  music  of  Marlowe.    Shake- 


6  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

speare  was  almost  too  quiet  for  Blake's  redundant 
youth.  Then  also,  he  took  up  the  shepherd  pipe 
to  which  the  greater  Elizabethans  sang  their  songs. 
A  song  like  My  silks  and  fine  array  might  have  been 
fathered  by  Fletcher. 

What  charmed  him  in  these  ancients  was  their 
naturalism.  What  displeased  him  in  his  contempo- 
raries was  their  artificialism.  Collins,  though  he 
strove  for  simplicity  and  loved  it,  though  he  arrived 
at  som.e  natural  joy,  could  not  altogether  shake  ojfF 
the  atmosphere  of  his  time.  In  Gray  there  was  too 
much  self-contemplation,  too  much  self-conscious 
art,  too  much  traditional  convention,  to  allow  natural 
impulse,  natural  passion,  to  have  its  full  freedom. 
Blake  never  breathed  that  artificial  atmosphere.  He 
lived  when  it  brooded,  still  heavily,  on  poetry,  but 
he  lived  above  its  close  and  breezeless  elements. 
He  was  conscious  of  them,  but  would  have  nothing 
to  do  with  them.  ^  Let  others,'  he  said,  ^sit  in  council 
with  their  modern  peers. 

And  judge  of  tinkling  rhymes  and  elegances  terse, 

I  will  not.'  And  he  might  well  say  that,  for  the 
transition  poetry  which  followed  on  Gray  and 
Collins  had  now  sunk  into  the  miserable  twangling 
of  Hayley's  Triumphs  of  Temper,  Now  and  again 
a  little  musical  cry  like  a  child's  laugh  arose  in  some 
neglected  ballad,  but,  on  the  whole,  the  Muses  had 
fallen  asleep  in  England.  And  Blake  could  find 
them  nowhere.  His  poem,  in  1777,  entitled  To  the 
Muses  expresses,  not  only  his  dismay  at  the  decay  of 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  7 

poetry  in  England,  but  cries  out  for  the  restoration 
to  poetry  of  the  childlike  passion  which,  among  the 
ancient  poets  of  England,  sprang  to  lovely  life, 
fresh  as  a  fountain  from  the  hills. 

Whether  on  Ida's  shady  brow, 

Or  in  the  chambers  of  the  East, 
The  chambers  of  the  Sun,  that  now 

From  antient  melody  have  ceas'd : 

Whether  in  Heav'n  ye  wander  fair, 
Or  the  green  corners  of  the  Earth, 

Or  the  blue  regions  of  the  air 

Where  the  melodious  winds  have  birth ; 

Whether  on  chrystal  rocks  ye  rove, 

Beneath  the  bosom  of  the  sea, 
Wand' ring  in  many  a  coral  grove, 

Fair  Nine,  forsaking  Poetry  1 

How  have  you  left  the  antient  love 

That  bards  of  old  enjoy'd  in  you ! 
The  languid  strings  do  scarcely  move ! 

The  sound  is  forc'd,  the  notes  are  few ! 

There  is  no  languor,  no  forced  or  conventional 
phrasing  in  the  verses  of  this  early  book.  And  the 
notes  he  strikes  are  manifold  and  various.  Notes 
of  loveliness,  simplicity,  and  passion,  even  of  fine 
melody,  for,  though  the  metre  of  these  poems  is 
in  the  strangest  confusion,  it  has  a  sweetness  of 
its  own,  a  musical  wash  as  of  the  wind  through 
woods  of  pine  ;  and  before  long,  as  his  original 
nature  forced  him,  he  made  his  own  manner  of 
verse  and  his  own  metres.  The  manner  and 
music  of  the  fragment  of  Edward  III.  had  not  been 


8  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

heard  in  England  since  the  Restoration.  Its  verse 
is  sensational,  but  it  does  not  think  of  itself.  The 
imagination  is  at  work  in  it  like  a  savage  of  genius ; 
but,  at  last,  it  is  truly  at  work.  No  one,  since 
Milton  laid  down  his  harp,  would  have  written  these 
lines  on  England  as  the  sovereign  of  the  seas  : 

Our  right,  that  Heaven  gave 
To  England,  when  at  the  birth  of  nature 
She  was  seated  in  the  deep ;  the  Ocean  ceas'd 
Her  mighty  roar,  and,  fawning  play'd  around 
Her  snowy  feet,  and  own'd  his  awful  Queen. 

Still  nobler,  almost  like  Milton,  and  inconceivably 
different  from  anything  else  written  at  the  time,  is 
this  little  speech  of  Chandos  : 

Considerate  age,  my  Lord,  views  motives. 

And  not  acts ;  when  neither  warbling  voice 

Nor  trilling  pipe  is  heard,  nor  pleasure  sits 

With  trembling  age,  the  voice  of  Conscience  then. 

Sweeter  than  music  in  a  summer's  eve. 

Shall  warble  round  the  snowy  head,  and  keep 

Sweet  symphony  to  feather'd  angels,  sitting 

As  guardians  round  your  chair  ;  then  shall  the  pulse 

Beat  slow,  and  taste  and  touch  and  sound  and  smell. 

That  sing  and  dance  round  Reason's  fine-wrought  throne. 

Shall  flee  away,  and  leave  them  all  forlorn ; 

Yet  not  forlorn  if  Conscience  is  his  friend. 

This  imagination,  in  contact  here  with  human 
life,  is  even  more  fresh  and  vivid  in  its  work  on 
Nature.  The  four  poems  addressed  to  ^he  Seasons 
retain  that  impersonation  in  which  Spenser  delighted, 
but  they  are  nearer  to  such  impersonation  as  Keats 
used  in  his  Ode  to  Autumn  than  they  are  to  Spenser. 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  9 

They  have  the  modern  rather  than  the  ancient 
literary  touch.  Moreover,  they  hold  in  them  what 
Spenser's  do  not  hold — the  personal  love  of  Nature 
which  is  the  special  mark  of  the  poetry  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  In  Blake  that  love  of  Nature  for 
her  own  sake  takes  the  form  of  joy  ;  an  audacious 
joy  as  of  a  young  man  in  the  plenitude  of  his 
power  in  the  secret  strength  and  godlike  splendour 
of  Nature.     Here  is  part  of  Summer : 

O  thou  who  passest  thro'  our  vallies  in 

Thy  strength,  curb  thy  fierce  steeds,  allay  the  heat 

That  flames  from  their  large  nostrils !      Thou,  O  Summer, 

Oft  pitched' St  here  thy  golden  tent,  and  oft 

Beneath  our  oaks  hast  slept,  while  we  beheld 

With  joy  thy  ruddy  limbs  and  flourishing  hair. 

And  here,  as  a  contrast,  as  soft,  as  full  of  humanity 
as  that  I  have  quoted  is  strong  and  full  of  early 
godhead,  are  the  Lines  to  the  Evening  Star  :  their 
metre  halts,  but  it  is  a  boy  who  is  writing. 

Thou  fair-haired  angel  of  the  evening, 

Now,  whilst  the  sun  rests  on  the  mountains,  light 

Thy  bright  torch  of  love ;  thy  radiant  crown 

Put  on,  and  smile  upon  our  evening  bed ! 

Smile  on  our  loves ;  and,  while  thou  drawest  the 

Blue  curtains  of  the  sky,  scatter  thy  silver  dew 

On  every  flower  that  shuts  its  sweet  eyes 

In  timely  sleep.     Let  thy  west  wind  sleep  on 

The  lake  ;  speak  silence  with  thy  glimmering  eyes. 

And  wash  the  dusk  with  silver. 

The  little  poem  l^o  Mornings  if  Shelley  could 
have  repaired  the  metre  Into  his  own  melody,  would 
be  like  one  of  those  lyrics  of  his  which  embody  the 


>!ii^'^ 
""^■C^^^. 


10  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

nature-myths  of  the  early  world.  The  poem  goes 
back  to  such  lines  as  these  of  Shakespeare  : 

Look  where  the  dawn,  in  russet  mantle  clad, 
Walks  o'er  the  dew  of  yon  high  eastern  hill ; 

and  it  looks  forward  to  Shelley.  It  is  not  too  long 
to  quote. 

O  holy  virgin  !   clad  in  purest  white, 
Unlock  heavn's  golden  gates,  and  issue  forth ; 
Awake  the  dawn  that  sleeps  in  heaven ;  let  light 
Rise  from  the  chambers  of  the  east,  and  bring 
The  honied  dew  that  cometh  on  waking  day. 
O  radiant  morning,  salute  the  sun 
Rouz'd  like  a  huntsman  to  the  chace,  and  with 
Thy  buskin'd  feet  appear  upon  our  hills. 

These,  spite  of  their  metrical  mistakes,  are  even 
more  modern  than  Wordsworth,  as  modern  as 
Keats  and  Tennyson  ;  they  are  prophetic  of  a  time 
at  hand  when  Nature  should  impress  herself  on  the 
poets  as  a  woman  on  her  lover,  and  bring  to 
life  a  new,  impassioned  music.  *  The  sounding 
cataract,'  said  Wordsworth,  'haunted  me  like  a 
passion.' 

Later  on,  in  the  prophetic  books,  he  is  some- 
times, when  his  mysticism  does  not  intrude,  closer 
to  reality.  His  eye,  for  the  morrient,  is  fixed  on 
the  subject.  He  draws  direct  from  Nature.  No- 
thing then  seems  to  intrude  into  her  sphere.  All 
the  world  is  alive.  The  lark  sings  the  song  of  the 
morning  to  God.  The  sun  listens,  full  of  awe  and 
humility.  The  whole  world  rejoices  in  itself  and 
in  its  Maker.     Here  are  lines  which  it  is  almost 


p 

I    tin: 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  ii 

incredible  were  written  in  the  eighteenth  century. 
They  are  even  nearer  than  anything  in  Wordsworth 
or  Shelley  to  the  spiritual  Being  of  Nature — to 
that  universal  Thought  and  Love  of  which  visible 
Nature  is  the  form  : 

Thou  hearest  the  nightingale  begin  the  song  of  spring ; 
The  lark,  sitting  upon  his  earthy  bed,  just  as  the  morn 
Appears,  listens  silent ;  then,  springing  from  the  waving  corn- 
field, loud 
He  leads  the  choir  of  day :  trill — trill — trill — trill — 
Mounting  upon  the  wings  of  light  into  the  great  expanse. 
Re-echoing  against  the  lovely  blue  and  shining  heavenly  shell 
His  little  throat  labours  with  inspiration  :  every  feather 
On  throat  and  breast  and  wing  vibrate  with  the  effluence  divine. 
All  Nature  listens  to  him  silent :  and  the  awful  sun 
Stands  still  upon  the  mountains,  looking  on  this  little  bird 
With  eyes  of  soft  humility,  and  wonder,  love,  and  awe. 
Then  loud,  from  their  green  coverts,  all  the  birds  began  their 

song,— 
The  thrush,  the  linnet  and  the  goldfinch,  robin  and  the  wren, 
Awake  the  sun  from  his  sweet  reverie  upon  the  mountains ; 
The  nightingale  again  essays  his  song,  and  through  the  day 
And  through  the  night  warbles  luxuriant ;  every  bird  of  song 
Attending  his  loud  harmony  with  admiration  and  with  love. 

That  is  beautiful,  and  it  is  only  one  example  of 
nature  poetry  in  the  prophetic  books.  It  touches 
Milton  with  *one  hand,  it  touches  Wordsworth 
and  Shelley  with  another. 

Again,  the  cry  of  natural,  uncovenanted  passion 
of  love  in  poetry,  of  which  there  are  scarcely  a 
dozen  instances  to  be  found  for  nearly  a  hundred 
years,  but  which,  a  few  years  later,  was  recovered 
by  Burns  in  all  its  fulness,  is  now  struck  in  1777 


12  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

by  Blake.  And  struck  in  a  new  manner,  a 
manner  all  his  own ;  touched  not  only  with  natural 
sensuousness,  but  with  a  fire  of  divine  purity,  as  of 
one  who  had  seen  in  her  he  loved  a  vision  of  the 
heavenly  host.  The  difference  of  this  little  poem 
from  the  love  poetry  of  his  time  is  incalculable. 

Like  as  an  angel  glitt'ring  in  the  sky- 
In  times  of  innocence  and  holy  joy  ; 
The  joyful  shepherd  stops  his  grateful  song 
To  hear  the  music  of  an  angeFs  tongue. 

So  when  she  speaks,  the  voice  of  Heaven  I  hear ; 
So  when  we  walk,  nothing  impure  comes  near ; 
Each  field  seems  Eden,  and  each  calm  retreat ; 
Each  village  seems  the  haunt  of  holy  feet. 

But  that  sweet  village  where  my  black-ey'd  maid 
Closes  her  eyes  in  sleep  beneath  night's  shade, 
Whene'er  I  enter,  more  than  mortal  fire 
Burns  in  my  soul,  and  doth  my  song  inspire. 

But  the  greatest  change  in  poetry,  and  difference 
from  the  poets  of  his  time,  is  in  the  songs.  These 
are  truly  the  first  sounding  of  the  modern  lyric,  of 
its  natural  delight  and  sorrow.  They  look  forward 
then,  but  they  also  look  backward.  A  few  of 
them,  in  this  book,  reproduce,  in  grace  and  music 
and  natural  feeling,  the  spirit  of  Elizabethan  song. 
In  the  Songs  of  Innocence  they  cease  to  be  imitative; 
they  leave  the  Elizabethan  songsters  behind,  and 
are  now  all  Blake's  own,  original  in  manner,  music, 
metre,  and  spirit. 

To  write  a  lovely  song  is  one  of  the  rare  things 
of  the  world.     Sometimes  a  man,  when  life  is  thrill- 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  13 

ing  with  youthfulness,  and  when  in  an  hour  of 
uncommon  and  clear  feeling  all  is  lost  but  the  high 
emotion  of  the  moment,  will  write  a  single  song, 
and  write  no  more.  There  are  instances  of  this  in 
poetry,  but  they  are  very  uncommon.  But  to  have 
the  power  to  write  many  songs,  or  even  half  a  dozen 
of  a  beautiful  quality,  belongs  only  to  Nature's 
darlings. 

A  perfect  song  needs  genius,  passion,  and  the 
power  of  giving  a  lovely  movement  to  the  verse — 
things  that  are  the  gift  of  nature — and  with  these, 
the  power  of  seeing  what  is  lovely  in  the  joyfulness 
or  the  sorrow  either  of  nature  or  humanity.  It 
needs  the  fearlessness  which  belongs  to  unself-con- 
sciousness.  It  needs  the  naturalness  of  a  child. 
When  these  are  in  a  man,  then  any  momentary, 
piercing,  passionate  impression  received  from  human 
life  and  nature — such  an  impression  as  naturally  fits 
itself  into  brevity  of  expression — is  seized  on  with 
eagerness,  and  around  every  impression  all  the 
powers  of  the  soul  fly  together,  adding  each  its  own 
light,  and  heat,  and  variety,  till  the  imagination, 
rejoicing  in  the  result  and  glowing  with  it,  first 
strikes  it  into  a  passionate  unity  and  then  shapes 
it  into  words  that  sing  by  their  own  nature  and 
are  enchanted  with  their  own  singing.  But  this 
impression,  fitted  to  be  shaped  into  a  song  rather 
than  into  any  other  kind  of  poetry,  does  not  come 
forth  slowly  as  an  epic  or  a  drama,  but  rises 
instantly,  like  the  rising  of  a  water-lily  to  the 
surface  of  a  pool.      As  to    its  music,    it  has  one 


14  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

cry  above  all  its  various  sounds,  the  cry  of  the 
dominant  unmeditated  emotion  which  gives  it 
unity.  Then  what  we  feel,  and  what  the  song  ought 
to  make  us  feel,  is  that  we  are  in  the  presence  of 
a  birth  of  Nature  herself,  as  lovely,  swift,  happy, 
and  unconscious  as  the  sudden  unfolding  of  the 
water-lily's  flower. 

Again,  the  best  songs  are  written  not  only 
when  the  poet  is  young,  but  when  the  nation  round 
him  is  also  young,  when  humanity  wears  the  beauty 
and  joy  of  promise.  When  Shakespeare  began  his 
work  England  had  been  born  again.  The  people 
were  as  bold,  natural,  and  excited  as  a  boy  let  loose 
from  school.  Life  was,  as  it  were,  a  succession  of 
songs.  It  had  the  suddenness,  the  spontaneousness, 
the  want  of  self-consciousness,  the  freshness,  of  a 
song. 

Well,  Blake,  rising  himself,  as  it  were,  out  of  the 
deep,  having  no  communion  with  the  critical  or 
reflective  poetry,  abandoning  himself  frankly  to 
every  natural  feeling,  having  genius  and  its  powers, 
quite  devoid  of  self-consideration,  seeing  beauty 
everywhere,  hearing  music  everywhere,  ineff^ably 
eager  and  joyous,  a  very  child  yet  with  a  man's 
power — made  songs  in  his  heart  all  day  long,  and 
when  any  one  of  them  leaped  in  his  heart  for  joy, 
it  rose  instantly,  like  the  lily  released  from  the  lake- 
bed,  into  the  flower  of  unchartered  verse. 

Moreover,  though  his  world  was  old  around  him, 
a  new  world  was  at  hand.  That  was  coming,  after 
a  pregnancy  of  centuries,  that  impulsive  outburst 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  15 

into  form  of  ideas  filled  each  to  the  brim  and 
overflowing  with  emotion,  which  for  a  short  time 
made  the  world  like  the  world  of  Shakespeare's 
youth, 

Fresh  as  a  banner  bright,  unfurled 
To  music  suddenly. 

Blake  felt  that  impulse  of  the  Revolution  even 
before  it  came,  as  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  felt 
it  when  it  came.  It  is  interesting  to  think  that 
the  date  of  the  publication  of  the  Songs  of  Innocence 
was  1789. 

It  was  no  wonder  then  that  he  wrote  songs. 
Moreover,  there  were  elements  in  his  character 
which  were  the  air  and  fire  and  dew  of  songs.  He 
lived  in  a  visionary  world  of  his  own  in  which  all 
things  rejoiced  and  sang.  '  Heaven  opens  here,' 
he  says  of  Felpham  where  he  lived  in  a  cottage, '  on 
all  sides  her  golden  gates  ;  her  windows  are  not 
obstructed  by  vapours  ;  voices  of  the  celestial  in- 
habitants are  more  distinctly  heard  and  their  forms 
more  distinctly  seen  ;  and  my  cottage  is  also  a  shadow 
of  their  houses.'  He  saw  once  small  and  lovely  spirits 
singing  in  every  blossom  of  the  neighbouring  cherry 
tree.  This  world,  gloomy  with  money-making, 
did  not  trouble  him.  All  about  him  the  heavens 
were  filled  with  the  morning  stars,  chanting  the 
praise  of  God.  Therefore,  though  the  age  in  which 
he  lived  was  outworn,  his  world  was  even  more 
dewy  and  young  than  England  was  to  Shakespeare. 
No  marvel,  then,  that  he  was  a  natural  lyrist,  that 


i6  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

he  could  write  lines  like  these,  in  which  the  emotion 
and  the  metrical  movement  alike  are  like  the  eyes 
and  the  dancing  of  a  musical  child. 

There  she  sits  and  feeds  her  young, 
Sweet  I  hear  her  mournful  song; 
And  thy  lovely  leaves  among 
There  is  Love,  I  hear  his  tongue. 

Nor  is  it  any  marvel  that  he  could  write,  with  the 
same  power  as  he  touched  the  sunlight  of  life,  a  song 
like  My  silks  and  fine  array ^  in  which  he  pencilled  in 
the  deep  shadow  of  life  with  the  quaintness  and 
tenderness  of  a  child.  It  is  imitative  ;  its  phrases 
seem  borrowed  from  Shakespeare  ;  and  were  one  to 
find  it  in  a  play  of  Fletcher's  we  should  not  be 
surprised  ;  but  it  has  its  own  music — Blake's  silver 
note,  not  as  yet  fully  conscious  of  itself,  nor  as 
yet  shaped  into  its  individual  melody.  It  differs 
jfrom  Fletcher's  singing  as  one  star  differs  from 
another. 

My  silks  and  fine  array, 

My  smiles  and  languished  air, 
By  love  are  driv'n  away ; 

And  mournful  lean  Despair 
Brings  me  yew  to  deck  my  grave : 
Such  end  true  lovers  have. 

His  face  is  fair  as  heav'n 

When  springing  buds  unfold ; 
O  why  to  him  was 't  giv'n 

Whose  heart  is  wintry  cold  ? 
His  breast  is  love's  all-worship'd  tomb, 
Where  all  love's  pilgrims  come. 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  17 

Bring  me  an  axe  and  spade, 

Bring  me  a  winding  sheet ; 
When  I  my  grave  have  made 

Let  winds  and  tempests  beat : 
Then  down  I  '11  lie  as  cold  as  clay. 
True  love  doth  pass  away ! 

It  is  more  childlike  than  Fletcher.  It  imitates 
Elizabethan  verse  as  a  child  imitates  its  parent. 
Indeed,  the  best  explanation  of  Blake's  songs  is  that 
he  was  always  a  child  at  heart ;  and  it  would  not 
have  mattered  where  he  lived,  he  would  always 
have  been  at  home.  The  child,  if  he  be  loved, 
knows  neither  time  nor  space.  Were  he  placed 
suddenly  in  the  Egypt  of  the  Pharaohs,  or  on 
the  steps  of  the  Parthenon  when  Phidias  was 
working,  he  would  play,  were  those  he  loved  with 
him,  with  as  much  unconsciousness  and  joy  as  in 
his  own  garden  in  Surrey.  All  his  life  long 
Blake  was  like  that.  Wherever  he  wished  to  be  he* 
was.  Wherever  he  wished  to  live  he  lived.  All 
lovely  things  were  as  real  to  him  as  fairyland  is  to 
the  child.  All  things  were  of  the  same  time  and 
the  same  place  to  him  whenever  he  chose.  Not 
one  thought  of  distrust  and  fear  and  shame  ever 
drew  him  back  from  spontaneous  joy.  This  was 
and  is,  and  will  be  always,  the  atmosphere  in  which 
a  certain  rare  type  of  the  Song  is  born — the  Song 
unconscious  of  self  or  sorrow,  full  of  innocent 
delight  in  an  innocent  world,  of  happy  trust  in 
love. 

There  are  songs  of  many  passions,  of  sorrow,  of 


i8  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

earthly  rapture,  of  mirth,  of  the  fine  spirit  of  youth 
and  age,  of  natural  love,  of  patriot  fervour,  of  the 
beauty  of  the  world  in  our  soul — of  a  hundred 
things-^but  the  song  of  the  child's  heart  has  never 
been  written  by  a  child.  It  is  only  sung  within. 
To  write  it  needed  a  man  with  the  heart  of  a  child  ; 
and  to  find  him  is  one  of  the  rarest  things  in  the 
world.  We  have  been  driven  out  of  Eden,  where 
we  could  lie  down  with  the  lion  and  the  bear,  and 
hear  the  angels  speak.  The  swords  wave  always 
over  the  gate  and  forbid  return ;  and  though  we 
remember  the  music  of  the  song  our  childhood 
sang  in  our  soul,  we  cannot  put  it  into  words.  But 
Blake  was  never  unable  to  return.  Whenever  he 
liked  he  played  in  Eden,  and  its  songs  came  freshly 
to  his  lips.  This  leaves  him  at  this  point  alone 
among  the  poets.  There  are  a  few  who,  like  Shake- 
speare, can  go  forth  with  Adam  and  Eve  over 
the  world,  share  in  the  deep  passions  of  our  mortal 
struggle,  then  verse  them  with  immortal  pity,  and 
afterwards  pass  back  for  a  moment  through  the 
gate,  and  sing  a  song  of  the  fearless  paradise. 
Only  a  very  few  have  done  it,  and  the  power  to 
do  it  was  momentary.  But  Blake  lived  at  choice, 
and  at  his  ease,  within  the  flashing  circle  of  the 
swords.  No  angel  sentinel  ever  challenged  him. 
His  Songs  of  Innocence  uncover  the  hidings  of 
this  strength  of  his.  '  Yes,'  we  say  as  we  read 
them,  '  the  kingdom  of  this  rare  sweet  song  is  like 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  ;  one  must  enter  it  like  a 
little  child.' 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  19 

The  Songs  of  Innocence  are  the  poems  by  which 
Blake  is  chiefly  known,  and  they  were  published  in 
1789,  when  the  roar  of  the  French  Revolution 
began  to  throb  in  the  ears  of  men,  so  strange  are 
the  contrasts  of  this  world.  The  book  sang  of 
the  simplest  things,  of  pastoral  and  city  life,  of  the 
shepherd  and  the  lambs,  of  the  charity  boys  and 
the  chimney-sweep,  of  the  common  earth,  of 
mother's  love  and  of  the  love  of  God.  In  this 
choice  of  homely  subject,  in  this  naturalness  of 
emotion  and  expression,  in  this  theme  of  the  human 
heart,  these  songs  are  the  prelude  to  the  Lyrical 
Ballads,  The  critics  of  the  time,  when  they  read 
JVe  are  Seven  or  of  the  charity  children  going 
to  St.  Paul's,  said  that  Wordsworth  was  a  fool  and 
that  Blake  was  mad.  '  Misshapen  wretch,'  they 
cried,  as  their  blear  eyes  bent  over  the  baby  of  the 
new  poetry  in  his  cradle,  '  the  child  is  babbling  like  an 
idiot.'  But  the  child  grew  and  sang  so  sweetly  that 
all  the  world,  pleased  to  be  in  the  dewy  woods 
of  life  again,  listened  and  rejoiced.  Blake  in  the 
Songs  of  Innocence  brought  the  child  to  life.  It  is 
part  of  their  historical  place  in  English  poetry. 

Another  part  of  their  historical  place  is — that 
they  are  the  first  clear  full  example  of  that  idea  of 
the  Revolution  which  is  expressed  in  the  term  '  the 
return  to  Nature.'  It  is  not  by  any  means  the 
first  time  that  the  idea  was  expressed  in  English 
poetry.  It  had  been  appearing  in  all  the  poets  who 
succeeded  Pope,  but  it  appeared  mingled  up  with 
the  ideas  of  the  past  poetry.     In  Blake  for  the  first 


ao  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

time   it  appeared   unmingled   with   the    past,    and 

prophesying  the  future  poetry. 

,_<>^^  As  to  the  songs  themselves,  they  are  as  gay,  as 

x^c'^,  sweet,  as  musical,  and  as  tender  as  the  song  of  a 

►^  mother -bird    over  her  nestlings  when    the   sunny 

wind  is  playing  in  the  tree ;  such  songs  as  a  child 

who  had  the  wisdom  of  an  angel  might  sing  as  it 

wandered  in  the  flowery  glades  of  Eden.     They  are 

"^^    all  of  transient  emotion,  felt,  realised,  and  left  behind. 

But  the  transiency  does  not  mean  want  of  depth  of 

feeling.     The  rapidity  of  change  arises,  not  from 

carelessness  of  the  present  impression,  but  from  the 

extreme  vividness  with  which  the  impression   that 

replaces  it  is  felt.     This,  which  is  almost  unknown 

in  adult  life,  is  of  the  very  nature  of  a  child  ;  and 

Blake  himself  realised  the  equally   passionate   and 

,^^,  transient  character  of  his  impressions  ;  and  that  they 

were  in  this  of  the  temper  of  a  child. 

Then  the  whole  atmosphere  of  the  little  book  is 
that  of  guileless  joy.  When  the  babe  is  born,  he 
cries  : 

\  V         1^  Sweet  joy  but  two  days  old. 

^  Sweet  joy  I  call  thee. 

Thou  dost  smile, 
I  sing  the  while ; 
Sweet  joy  befall  thee  ! 

*  I  have  no  name — 

I  am  but  two  days  old.' 
What  shall  I  call  thee  ? 

*  I  happy  am, 
Joy  is  my  name.' 
Sweet  joy  befall  thee  i 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  21 

When  the  boy  looks  at  Nature  he  hears  everything 
laugh  with  joy  : 

When  the  green  woods  laugh  with  the  voice  of  joy, 
And  the  dimpling  stream  runs  laughing  by ; 
When  the  air  does  laugh  with  our  merry  wit, 
And  the  green  hill  laughs  with  the  noise  of  it. 

And  the  life  lived  in  them  is  also  that  which  forms 
so  large  an  element  in  a  child's  heart — a  life  of  the 
gayest,  wildest,  quaintest,  most  unreasoning  fantasy, 
of  images  of  fairy  creatures,  of  animals  living  and 
talking  to  mankind,  of  birds  and  insects  and  all 
living  things  at  play  among  themselves  and  with  us, 
of  flowers  and  trees  and  clouds,  alive  and  in  delight ; 
of  dreams  that  are  realities  and  realities  that  are 
dreams.  Joy  and  imagination  are  the  king  and 
queen  of  the  world,  and  their  child  is  love — love  of 
the  old  folk  sitting  under  the  tree  and  watching  the 
children  at  play  on  the  village  green,  of  the  lamb 
wandering  by  the  stream,  of  the  robin  under  the 
blossom,  of  the  merry  sparrow  swift  as  an  arrow,  of 
the  bells  dancing  in  the  sky,  of  the  song  of  the 
nurse  while  the  hills  echo  to  the  shouts  of  the 
children,  of  the  talk  of  the  glow-worm  and  the 
emmet,  of  the  little  boy  lost,  of  the  pity  of  man 
for  the  world,  of  all  things  gracious,  gentle,  inno- 
cent, and  tender.  These  are  the  daily  wonders  of 
the  wonderful  world  that  happy  artist  knew  and  sang 
and  painted,  and  they  are  the  wonders  of  a  child. 

The  religion  of  the  songs  is  as  simple  as  their 
joy.  There  is  no  prayer  in  it,  nothing  but  praise, 
praise  for  the  loveliness  of  the  world  where  he  saw 


22  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

angels  walking  in  the  fields  and  in  every  flower  a 
fairy  of  God.  God  was  the  Father  of  all,  and  took 
care  of  them,  and  was  delighted  to  take  care  of 
them.  When  we  read  a  little  poem  like  "The 
Lamb  we  understand  how  this  wise  poet  felt  about 
the  world.  It  was  a  world  of  everyday  love  and 
beauty  in  common  life,  but  it  was  also  that  quaint 
enchanted  world  which  children  create  for  God  and 
the  angels,  and  of  which  they  talk  so  seriously. 
Take,  for  example,  verses  like  these : 

The  sun  descending  in  the  west, 
The  evening  star  does  shine ; 
The  birds  are  silent  in  their  nest, 
And  I  must  seek  for  mine. 
The  moon,  like  a  flower, 
In  heaven's  high  bower, 
With  silent  delight 
Sits  and  smiles  in  the  night. 

Farewell,  green  fields  and  happy  groves, 
Where  flocks  have  took  delight. 
Where  lambs  have  nibbled,  silent  moves 
The  feet  of  angels  bright ; 
Unseen,  they  pour  blessing. 
And  joy  without  ceasing, 
On  each  bud  and  blossom, 
And  each  sleeping  bosom. 

They  look  in  every  thoughtless  nest. 
Where  birds  are  cover'd  warm ; 
They  visit  caves  of  every  beast, 
To  keep  them  from  all  harm. 
If  they  see  any  weeping 
That  should  have  been  sleeping. 
They  pour  sleep  on  their  head, 
And  sit  down  by  their  bed. 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  23 

What  a  world  !  And  when  into  the  midst  of  it 
steps  the  lion,  with  ruddy  eyes  and  tears  of  gold, 
and  watches  the  whole  world's  fold  for  God,  and  lies 
down  with  the  lamb  to  sleep — then  the  creative 
imagination  of  a  man  has  entered  into  the  child's 
heart,  and  we  possess  that  mingling  of  both  which 
is  distinct  in  English  song  ; — the  only  soil  in  which 
lyrics  like  these  come  to  a  perfect  flowerage. 

The  Songs  of  Experience  succeeded,  five  years  later, 
the  Songs  of  Innocence.  The  title  tells  us  what  they 
mean.  They  are  the  reversal  of  the  Songs  of  Inno- 
cence^ the  result  of  knowing  good  and  evil.  Even 
the  titles  of  the  greater  number  are  the  same  as  those 
of  the  Songs  of  Innocence^  as  if  Blake  wished  us  to 
know  the  double  face  which  the  world  presented  to 
him.  I  have  quoted  Infant  Joy,  Here  is  Infant 
Sorrow^  as  Blake  engraved  it  for  the  Songs  of  Expert^ 
ence^  and  when  we  remember  its  predecessor  we  know 
what  he  was  trying  to  do  in  the  Songs  of  Experience. 

My  mother  groan'd,  my  father  wept, 
Into  the  dangerous  world  I  leapt ; 
Helpless,  naked,  piping  loud, 
Like  a  fiend  hid  in  a  cloud. 

Struggling  in  my  father's  hands. 
Striving  against  my  swadling-bands, 
Bound  and  weary,  I  thought  best 
To  sulk  upon  my  mother's  breast. 

Most  of  the  others  are  set  over  in  the  same  way, 
in  fierce  realisation  of  misery  and  pain,  against  the 
innocent  life  he  had  celebrated  ;  and  the  horror  is 
as  unmixed,  as  ungradated,  as  the  pleasure  and  beauty 


24  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

were.  Among  all  the  Songs  of  Experience  there  are 
only  a  few,  like  The  Little  Girl  Lost  and  Found^  which 
are  not  dark  with  pain  and  sin  and  sorrow. 

Even  here  the  child-nature  bears  its  fruit.  Blake's 
unmodified  horror  is  not  that  of  an  experienced  man, 
but  such  as  a  child  would  feel,  who,  suddenly  taken 
from  his  mother's  garden,  found  himself  in  the  dark 
walls  of  a  prison.  All  its  ugliness,  tolerable  to  those 
who  knew  it,  would  be  seen  with  loathing  unspeak- 
able by  the  child.  Blake  In  this  way  saw  the  most 
dreadful  side  of  dreadful  things  ;  more  than  we  see ; 
and  he  could  not  distinguish,  as  we  do,  any  touches 
of  light  in  the  darkness.  His  expression,  therefore,  of 
experience  was  as  exaggerated  towards  misery  as  his 
expression  of  innocence  may  seem  to  us  exaggerated 
towards  joy — and  this  is  just  the  temper  of  a  child 
towards  the  pain  and  pleasure,  the  evil  and  the  good 
of  the  world.  We  have  it  here  in  a  man,  and  an 
interesting  problem  it  is.  In  both  his  pictures  of 
the  world,  there  are  no  gradations.  Nevertheless, 
this  was  of  use  to  him  in  his  art.  There  is  nothing 
like  the  burning  whiteness  of  some  of  the  Songs  of 
Innocence  in  the  whole  of  literature.  He  touches, 
without  danger,  and  without  shame  of  fear,  the 
lightnings  of  the  sword  of  innocence.  We  get  the 
archetypes  of  good.  And  now  we  get  the  archetypes 
of  evil.     The  same  hand  which  drew  the  Lamb  in 

^  These  two  poems  on  Lyca  and  her  parents  belong  rather  to  the 
Songs  of  Innocence.  I  think  they  were  a  reversion  to  their  type.  There 
are  two  other  poems  in  the  Songs  of  Experience — A  Little  Boy  Lost,  and 
another,  A  Little  Girl  Lost — which  are  as  ghastly  as  those  on  Lyca  are 
lovely. 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  25 

its  essence  drew  also,  with  a  fierceness  of  imagination, 
the  fiercest  of  all  beasts — not  a  tiger,  but  all  tigers 
in  one — the  essential  tiger. 

Then,  dreadfully  opposed  to  the  unchartered 
forgiveness  of  the  Songs  of  Innocence^  is  the  savage 
revenge,  the  very  concentration  of  malice  and  hate, 
unmixed  with  any  touch  of  relief,  of  the  poem, 
A  Poison  "Tree.  There  is  no  dulness  in  hatred  like 
this.  It  is  driven  and  wrought  by  imagination. 
Webster  alone  might  have  approached  it. 

I  was  angry  with  my  friend : 

I  told  my  wrath,  my  wrath  did  end. 

I  was  angry  with  my  foe : 

I  told  it  not,  my  wrath  did  grow. 

And  I  watered  it  in  fears, 
Night  and  morning,  with  my  tears ; 
And  I  sunned  it  with  smiles, 
And  with  soft  deceitful  wiles. 

And  it  grew  both  day  and  night, 
Till  it  bore  an  apple  bright ; 
And  my  foe  beheld  it  shine. 
And  he  knew  that  it  was  mine. 

And  into  my  garden  stole 

When  the  night  had  veiled  the  pole : 

In  the  morning  glad  I  see 

My  foe  outstretch'd  beneath  the  tree. 

These  intense  extremes  are  very  rare  in  literature. 

The  next  thing  to  say  about  these  Songs  of  Experi- 
ence belongs  in  part  to  the  history  of  the  nineteenth 
century's  early  poetry.  It  is  their  sympathy  with 
the  aggressive  ideas  of  the  Revolution.  Blake  was 
a  born  Republican.     Of  all  the  men  with  whom  he 


26  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

associated  (and  the  story  goes  that  he  saved  Tom 
Paine  from  the  gallows),  he  was  the  only  one  who 
donned  in  the  open  streets  the  red  cap  of  the 
Republic.  Long  before  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge, 
he  put  the  militant  ideas  of  the  Revolution  into 
verse.  Shelley  himself  never  spoke  more  fiercely 
of  kings  and  priestcraft,  of  tyrannic  fraud,  force  and 
oppression  than  Blake,  full  of  wrath  and  menace, 
did  in  1794,  and  in  the  prophetic  books. 

The  America^  one  of  these,  takes  as  its  theme  the 
War  of  Independence,  and  the  angels  of  Albion, 
who  fight  with  the  angels  of  the  States,  are  not 
spared  in  the  combat.  Like  Wordsworth,  like 
Coleridge,  he  stood  for  the  liberty  of  mankind  against 
his  own  country.  Patriotism  was  merged — that 
essential  difference  of  the  Revolution — in  love  of 
all  mankind.  Here  is  a  passage  which  gives  some 
idea  of  the  loudness  of  Blake's  cry  for  liberty. 
Humanity  wakes,  like  us,  at  the  sun-rising. 

The  morning  comes,  the  night  decays,  the  watchmen  leave  their 

stations, 
The  grave  is  burst,  the  spices  shed,  the  linen  wrappM  up ; 
The  bones  of  death,  the  covering  clay,  the  sinews  shrunk  and 

dried, 
Reviving,  shake,  inspiring,  move,  breathing,  awakening, — 
Spring,  like  redeemM  captives  when  their  bonds  and  bars  are 

burst. 
Let  the  slave  grinding  at  the  mill  run  out  into  the  field. 
Let  him  look  up  into  the  heavens  and  laugh  in  the  bright  air ; 
Let  the  enchainM  soul,  shut  up  in  darkness  and  in  sighing. 
Whose  face  has  never  seen  a  smile  in  thirty  weary  years. 
Rise,  and  look  out !      His  chains  are  loose,  his  dungeon  doors  are 

open. 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  27 

But  he  was  much  fiercer  than  that.  Under  the 
symbol  of  the  Kings  of  Asia  he  represents  the 
despots  of  Europe  and  their  manner  of  getting  their 
own  way  with  the  people.  He  makes  them  set  afoot, 
with  the  help  of  the  priesthood,  famine  and  pesti- 
lence that  the  people  may  be  slain.  The  Kings  run 
out  of  their  ancient  woven  dens. 

And  the  Kings  of  Asia  stood, 

And  cried  in  bitterness  of  soul — 
*  Shall  not  the  King  call  for  Famine  from  the  heath, 
And  the  Priest  for  Pestilence  from  the  fen. 
To  restrain,  to  dismay,  to  thin 
The  inhabitants  of  mountain  and  plain  ? ' 

Still  more  bitter  and  savage  is  the  poem  entitled 
Lafayette.  In  it  the  King  and  Queen  of  France 
consult  what  they  shall  do  to  bring  the  people  to 
obedience.  And  the  Queen  orders  temptation  to 
vice  to  be  doubled  in  the  Paris  streets  so  that 
pestilence  may  fly  through  them.  And  she  calls  for 
the  army  to  consume  the  food  of  Paris  that  the 
people  may  be  starved.  These  are  the  methods,  he 
thought,  of  Kings — 

The  strongest  poison  ever  known 
Came  from  Cassar's  laurel  crown. 

1 
The  attack  on  priestcraft,  on  its  religion  of  terror 

and  restraint,  on  the  inhuman  God  it  made,  on  its 
dogmatic  creeds  by  which  it  kept  men  slaves,  was 
equally  vigorous.  His  poem  of  "^he  Little  Boy  Lost 
is  a  direct  blow  at  the  cruelty  of  a  religion  which 
replaces  natural  love  by  authority  as  the  basis  of 


28  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

religion.  The  priest  slays  the  child  because  it  says 
it  loves  its  father  not  because  it  is  told  to  do  so 
but  out  of  its  own  heart.  '  Lo  !  what  a  fiend  is 
here,'  he  cries, 

One  who  sets  reason  up  for  judge 
Of  our  most  holy  mystery ; 

and  he  burns  the  child  alive  in  a  holy  place.  ^  Are 
such  things,'  Blake  asks,  '  done  on  Albion's  shore  ? ' 
and  the  proper  answer  would  be,  since  'the  poem  is 
symbolic,  that  they  were  and  are  done.  In  another 
;^  poem,  T^he  Grey  Monk^  the  monk  declares  that  all 
.  -  *  he  has  written  has  been  the  bane  of  every  one  he 
loved,  and  let  loose  on  earth  starvation,  torture, 
misery,  and  war.  Blake  is  especially  furious  with 
the  use  the  priesthood  in  all  ages  have  made  of 
devilish  means — of  force  and  fraud — to  establish  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  This  is  damnable,  he  thinks, 
and  so  it  is.  The  world  is  saved  and  made  divine 
by  other  weapons  of  war.     And  these  are  they  : 

But  vain  the  Sword  and  vain  the  Bow, 
They  never  can  work  War's  o'erthrow. 
The  Hermit's  Prayer,  the  Widow's  Tear 
Alone  can  free  the  World  from  fear. 

For  a  Tear  is  an  Intellectual  Thing, 
And  a  Sigh  is  the  Sword  of  an  Angel  King, 
And  the  bitter  groan  of  the  Martyr's  woe 
Is  an  Arrow  from  the  Almightie's  Bow. 

Another  stanza  from  another  manuscript  of  the 
poem  explains  more  fully  the  last  verse  : 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  29 

But  the  tear  of  love — and  forgiveness  sweet, 
And  submission  to  death  beneath  his  feet — 
The  tear  shall  melt  the  sword  of  steel, 
And  every  wound  it  has  made  shall  heal. 

This  is  the  very  temper  of  Shelley  thirty  years 
before  he  wrote,  so  far  forward  did  Blake  reach. 
He  reached  further  still :  he  reached  into  the  social 
interests  of  the  poetry  which  followed  1832.  The 
things  which  concern  the  state  of  the  poor,  the 
starvation,  misery,  harlotry,  cruelty  to  animals,  the 
gambling  passion  which  made  guilt  and  hate  and 
sorrow — 

The  harlot's  cry  from  street  to  street 
Shall  weave  Old  England's  winding-sheet. 
The  winner's  shout,  the  loser's  curse 
Shall  dance  before  dead  England's  hearse. 

all  that  went  against  poetry — these  were  his  interests 
at  a  time  when  no  one  felt  much  about  them.  He 
seized  them  as  subjects  of  art  more  than  a  hundred 
years  ago.  In  the  Holy  'Thursday^  in  'The  Chimney- 
Sweeper^  in  the  concentrated  wrath  of  the  little  poem 
called  London^  we  might  think  we  heard — so  modern 
it  is — the  utterance  of  those  who  among  us  now  have 
ceased  to  believe  in  God  because  He  permits  the 
misery  of  the  poor.  I  have  no  space  in  which  to 
quote  these  poems  in  full,  but  to  complete  this 
sketch  of  the  modernness  of  this  work,  so  strange 
more  than  a  century  ago,  Blake  takes  up  the  theory 
which  is  still  stated,  to  the  shame  of  those  that 
state  it,  '  That  the  poor  shall  never  cease  out  of 
the  land,  and   that,   if  they  did,   Mercy  and  Pity 


30  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

would  lessen,  and  Charity  have  no  reason.'  This  is 
given  in  a  wild  song  called  "The  Human  Abstract^  but 
it  is  best  put  in  a  poem  from  the  Rossetti  MS.  : 

I  heard  an  Angel  singing 
When  the  day  was  springing : 

*  Mercy,  pity,  and  peace 
Is  the  world's  release.' 

Thus  he  sang  all  day 
Over  the  new-mown  hay, 
Till  the  sun  went  down, 
And  haycocks  looked  brown. 

I  heard  a  Devil  curse 

Over  the  heath  and  the  furze : 

*  Mercy  would  be  no  more 
If  there  was  nobody  poor, 

And  pity  no  more  would  be 
If  all  were  as  happy  as  we.' 
At  his  curse  the  sun  went  down 
And  the  heavens  gave  a  frown. 

These  were  some  of  the  prophetic  anticipations  of 
the  man,  and  they  make  his  small  piece  of  poetic 
work  important  in  the  history  of  poetry.  There 
were  others,  as  his  love  of  animals,  but  I  will  treat 
of  them  in  the  answer  to  another  question. 

That  question  is — How  far  did  Blake  represent 
the  naturalism  which  was  reborn  in  English  poetry 
after  the  artificial  school  of  Pope,  and  also  the 
romanticism  which  grew  into  poetry  out  of  this 
naturalism  ? 

The  naturalism  consisted  in  a  reversion,  with  a 
new  manner,  new  thought,  and  in  new  circumstances, 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  31 

to  the  profound  interest  in  the  whole  of  human 
nature  which  characterised  Chaucer  and  the  Eliza- 
bethans, to  all  its  phases  in  all  ranks  and  in  all 
countries — and  it  was  mixed  with  a  growing  interest 
in  the  nature  of  animals.  This  was  one  side  of  the 
naturalism.  The  other  side  was  an  eager  increase 
in  the  love  of  the  natural  world,  which  passed  from 
interest  in  it  as  a  background  for  human  life  into  an 
interest  in  it,  even  a  passion  for  it,  for  its  own  sake. 
Some  of  the  elements  of  the  romanticism  which 
followed  on  this  naturalism  grew  partly  and  naturally 
out  of  it.  Others  grew  up  independently  of  it,  but 
were  nourished  by  its  atmosphere.  The  statement 
of  what  these  elements  were,  and  how  they  arose, 
would  require  a  long  essay  and  cannot  be  done 
here.  What  can  be  done  is  to  mark  briefly  how 
far  Blake  was  naturalist  and  how  far  romantic. 
Blake's  naturalism  is  plain  enough.  It  consists  in,^ 
his  direct  painting  of  certain  very  simple,  as  well 
as  of  very  obscure,  phases  of  human  nature  as  yet 
scarcely  touched  by  the  English  poets  ;  and  in  an 
extremely  simple,  passionate,  and  spiritual  treatment 
of  both  phases,  as  if  the  human  nature  in  them 
belonged  less  to  this  earth  than  to  the  whole 
universe  of  spirit.  One  of  these  simple  phases  was 
the  nature  of  childhood.  We  have  already  seen 
how  important  he  made  the  child  in  English  poetry. 
Moreover,  he  placed  our  natural  love  of  animals, 
and  our  pity  for  them,  on  a  higher  level  than  ever 
it  had  been  before.  Indeed,  he  introduced  it  in  a 
new  and  more  serious  shape  into  English  poetry  ; 


32  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

and  he  shares  it,  before  Wordsworth  touched  it, 
with  Cowper  and  Burns.  His  tender  song  about 
the  Lamb  mingles  its  life  up  with  the  life  of 
children,  with  the  Divine  Child,  and  with  God  the 
Father.  The  sheep  feed  through  his  poetry  on  a 
thousand  hills  in  silent  delight.  The  angels  visit  the 
caves  of  the  wild  animals  and  look  into  the  nests  of 
the  birds  to  keep  them  from  harm,  and  to  pour 
sleep  on  their  heads.  God,  who  smiles  on  all,  ^  hears 
the  wren  with  sorrows  small.'     '  Arise,'  he  cries — 

Arise,  you  little  glancing  wings,  and  sing  your  infant  joy, 
Arise  and  drink  your  bliss ! 
For  everything  that  lives  is  holy. 

But  this  tenderness  went  further  than  either  Cowper 
or  Burns.  In  Blake's  mysticism  the  animals  became 
spiritual,  at  one  with  man  and  God,  part  of  a 
living  universe — visible  symbols  of  invisible  reahties. 
Lyca's  parents,  seeking  their  lost  child,  come  on  a 
crouching  lion  and  are  terrified,  but  soon  comforted, 
for 

They  look  upon  his  eyes 
FilTd  with  deep  surprise  ; 
And  wondering  behold 
A  Spirit  arm'd  in  gold. 

On  his  head  a  crown ; 
On  his  shoulders  down 
Flow'd  his  golden  hair. 
Gone  was  all  their  care. 

*  Follow  me,'  he  said, 
<  Weep  not  for  the  maid  ; 
In  my  palace  deep 
Lyca  lies  asleep.' 


WILLIAM  BLAKE 


33 


This  is  the  lion  who  watches  the  fold  of  humanity, 
when  the  sheep  of  the  great  Shepherd  are  sleeping. 
He  extended  the  same  feeling  to  all  animals.  To 
be  cruel  to  animals,  to  limit  their  liberty,  not  to 
recognise  their  kindred  to  us,  was  a  black  iniquity — 
a  spirit  in  man  which  injured  not  only  those  who 
possessed  it,  but  the  whole  State.  Against  it  the 
spiritual  world  was  in  revolt. 

A  Robin  Redbreast  in  a  Cage 
Puts  all  Heaven  in  a  Rage ! 
A  Dog  starved  at  his  Master's  Gate 
Predicts  the  ruin  of  the  State. 
A  Horse  misused  upon  the  Road 
Calls  to  Heaven  for  Human  blood. 
Each  outcry  of  the  hunted  Hare 
A  fibre  from  the  Brain  does  tear. 
A  Skylark  wounded  on  the  wing 
A  Cherubim  does  cease  to  sing. 

He  who  shall  hurt  the  little  Wren 
Shall  never  be  belov'd  by  men. 
The  wanton  Boy  that  kills  the  Fly 
Shall  feel  the  Spider's  enmity. 
He  who  torments  the  Chafer's  sprite 
Weaves  a  Bower  in  endless  Night. 
The  Catterpillar  on  the  leaf 
Repeats  to  thee  thy  Mother's  grief. 
Kill  not  the  Moth  nor  Butterfly 
For  the  Last  Judgment  draweth  nigh. 

Then,  in  the  happy  world  in  which  Blake  lived, 
animals  have  a  life  of  their  own  with  one  another. 
They  talk  together  ;  they  love  and  help  one  another. 
The  Emmet  has  lost  its  way  (I  give  a  single  example). 


34  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

like  a  child  in  a  wood,  among  the  tall  grass.  Blake 
hears  its  crying  and  pities  it,  but  he  cannot  help  it. 
Then  the  Glow-worm  intervenes,  and  Blake  hears 
its  voice.  ^  O  my  children/  cries  the  Emmet,  '  do 
they  cry  ?     Do  they  hear  their  father  sigh  ?  ' 

Pitying,  I  drop'd  a  tear ; 
But  I  saw  a  glow-worm  near, 
Who  replied  :  What  wailing  wight 
Calls  the  watchman  of  the  night  ? 

I  am  set  to  light  the  ground. 
While  the  beetle  goes  his  round. 
Follow  now  the  beetle's  hum ; 
Little  Wanderer,  hie  thee  home. 

Nothing  can  be  prettier,  more  full  of  life  and  love, 
than  the  world  in  which  that  little  thing  is  conceived. 
This  is  a  part  of  his  naturalism. 

Of  the  other  side  of  it,  of  naturalism  as  concerned 
not  with  human  or  animal  nature,  but  with  the 
natural  world  outside  of  ourselves,  I  have  written  a 
little  in  the  previous  pages.  I  gave  a  few  instances 
of  his  love  of  Nature  for  her  own  sake,  such  love  as 
led  us  directly  to  Wordsworth.  But  it  is  necessary 
now  to  say  that  his  love  of  Nature  was  not  so  much 
the  love  of  outward  Nature,  as  of  the  spiritual  life 
of  which  Nature  was  but  the  sensible  form.  What 
we  saw  and  heard  with  eyes  and  ears  was  a  happy 
illusion  ;  what  was  behind  phenomena,  that  was  the 
thing  to  love,  admire,  and  with  which  to  company. 
And  when  he  passed  beyond  the  flowers  and  the 
cloud,  the  stream  and  hill,  into  the  living  beings  they 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  35 

were,  the  realms  in  which  he  found  himself  were 
beautiful  beyond  compare  in  thought  and  sweet 
emotion.  Thel,  one  of  the  daughters  of  the  Sera- 
phim, complains  of  the  passing  of  all  things,  of  her 
uselessness  and  theirs,  and  would  lay  her  down  and 
die.  And  the  spiritual  beings  of  the  Lily  and  the 
Cloud,  the  Worm  and  the  Clod  of  Clay  answer  her 
in  lines  too  long  to  quote,  but  of  so  sweet,  so 
beautiful  a  tenderness  and  spirituality,  that  they 
seem  to  transmute  the  universe  and  all  its  life  from 
matter  into  spirit,  from  death  and  pain  into  life  and 
love. 

This  is  the  realm  in  which  we  finally  find  Blake's 
naturalism  when  it  has  to  do  with  the  love  of  the 
natural  world — a  very  different  thing  indeed  from 
the  love  of  Nature  in  the  other  poets.  They  cele- 
brate the  world  the  senses  perceive,  he  that  which 
is  in  the  spirit.  It  is  the  supernaturalism  of  this 
species  of  naturalism.  Yet  in  the  higher  poets 
who  followed  him  there  was  something  of  this 
emotional  thought  of  Blake's  contained,  at  least 
theoretically  contained.  Shelley  and  Wordsworth 
saw  infinite  Thought  and  Love  behind  the  appearance 
of  Nature,  but  they  gave  full  weight  to  that  which 
the  senses  perceived.  Blake  did  not ;  what  we  per- 
ceived was  illusion,  hid  the  reality  but  suggested  it. 
What  underlay  illusion  was  the  actual,  and  it  was  as 
real  to  Blake  as  our  sensible  world  is  to  us — the  fools 
of  what  we  see  and  hear  and  feel. 

We  are  led  to  believe  a  lie  S  ^    '  *  " 

When  we  see  with,  not  through,  the  eye ; 


36  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

Or,  expressed  more  clearly — 

To  see  a  World  in  a  Grain  of  Sand, 
And  a  Heaven  in  a  Wild  Flower ; 

Hold  Infinity  in  the  palm  of  your  hand. 
And  Eternity  in  an  hour. 

His  symbolic  use  of  natural  objects,  being  a  part 
of  his  pure  mysticism,  does  not  come  within  the 
scope  of  this  essay,  but  is  curiously  interesting  and 
imaginative.  The  Sun,  the  Moon,  the  Stars,  moun- 
tains, streams,  flowers,  are  loaded  with  spiritual 
meanings.  When  this  is  done  by  other  poets,  their 
work  on  the  whole  is  neither  suggestive  nor  exciting. 
But  this  symbolic  world  was  Blake's  native  country, 
and  he  breathed  its  air  with  ease  and  joy.  He  was 
satisfied  with  knowing  his  own  meaning  in  such 
verses,  and  quite  indifferent  about  their  compre- 
hension by  others  ;  but  since  they  are  poetically 
expressed,  they  not  only  kindle  the  imagination  of 
the  reader,  but  also  awaken  a  futile  but  agreeable 
curiosity  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  poetry  or 
the  love  of  poetry.  Beyond  that  curiosity,  there 
is  in  them  an  attractive  mystery  as  of  a  world 
unknown.  When  we  read  them,  it  is  as  if  a  door 
were  momentarily  opened  into  a  world  hidden  from 
us,  but  of  which  we  are  capable  of  becoming 
citizens.     I  quote  two  little  lyrics  of  this  kind. 

DAY 

The  Sun  arises  in  the  East 

Cloth'd  in  robes  of  blood  and  gold, 

Swords  and  spears  and  wrath  increast 
All  around  his  bosom  roU'd, 

CrounM  with  warlike  fires  and  raging  desires. 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  37 

SOFT    SNOW  .IVf^k?^*'^ 

I  walked  abroad  on  a  snowy  day  :  "^^^  -  ' 

I  ask'd  the  soft  snow  with  me  to  play : 
She  play'd  and  she  mehed  in  all  her  prime ; 
And  the  winter  called  it  a  dreadful  crime. 

On  the  whole  this  naturalism  of  Blake's  ended  in  a 
fantastic  but  serious  super  naturalism,  his  own,  his 
very  own. 

How  far  he  was  romantic  is  another  question. 
Some  of  his  younger  work,  like  his  imitations  of 
Ossian,  and  two  wild  ballads,  belong  to  that  reversion 
to  the  romantic  past  which  was  a  feature  of  the  time. 
But  he  soon  left  this  behind,  and  I  cannot  trace  any 
more  of  it  in  his  later  poetry.  Mysticism  over- 
whelmed it.  Again,  the  melancholy  note  which 
Young  introduces,  which  was  so  large  an  element 
in  romanticism  both  in  England  and  on  the 
Continent,  and  which  has  lasted  on  into  our  own 
time,  Blake  had  nothing  to  do  with.  The  main 
element  of  his  life  and  imagination  was  joy.  And 
when  he  saw  evil,  it  awakened  in  him  no  sentimental 
melancholy,  but  wrath,  fury,  the  fiercest  words, 
white  fire  of  abhorrence — anything  but  melancholy. 
He  thought  little  of  the  sorrow,  failures,  and  trials 
of  earth,  still  less  of  death,  over  which  the  romantics 
wail.  Some  are  born,  he  says,  to  misery,  some  to 
sweet  delight.  In  the  delight  sorrow  is  intertwined ; 
in  the  sorrow  joy.  This  is  the  truth  ;  to  realise  it  is 
to  be  at  rest  within,  and  safe  in  the  storms. 

Joy  and  woe  are  woven  fine, 
A  clothing  for  the  soul  divine ; 


38  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

Under  every  grief  and  pine 
Runs  a  joy  with  silken  twine. 
It  is  right  it  should  be  so  ; 
Man  was  made  for  joy  and  woe ; 
And,  when  this  we  rightly  know. 
Safely  through  the  world  we  go. 

Two  elements,  however,  characterising  the 
romantics,  emerged  in  Blake.  One  was  an  im- 
passioned, over-weening  individuality,  which  said, 
I  am  I ;  I  am  the  whole  world  ;  I  am  God  Himself. 
hOf  that  there  is  not  much  to  say  in  an  essay 
[kbout  his  poetry.  It  belonged  to  his  mystic 
.■jphilosophy,  if  we  can  call  it  a  philosophy  ;  and 
the  turn  it  took  in  him  carried  him  away  from 
all  the  forms  into  which  this  dominance  of  indi- 
viduality was  shaped  by  the  romantics.  Another 
was  the  element  of  wonder  :  and  this  arose  from 
the  slow  upgrowth  in  men — after  a  time  of  clear 
intellectualism  in  which  all  the  mystery  of  our- 
selves and  of  life  was  supposed  to  be  explained — 
of  a  renewed  sense  of  the  mystery  of  life  and  the 
world,  of  its  unintelligible  problems,  and  of  the 
sorrow  and  the  wonder  of  the  mystery.  What  are 
we  ?  and  what  is  the  world  ?  Is  it  actual  or  phen- 
omenal only  ?  What  lies  beneath  the  apparent  ? 
What  beauty,  what  horror,  what  goodness,  what 
truth,  what  life,  is  behind  the  illusion  in  which  we 
live  ?  When  we  are  ill,  the  questions  make  us 
melancholy  or  miserable,  and  life  is  a  vain  searching, 
a  fruitless  cry.  When  we  are  well,  we  live  in  an 
endless  wonder  of  the  beauty  and  the  truth  of  things. 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  39 

A  thousand  phases  of  this  appear  in  the  poets  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  The  phase  of  it  which  appeared 
in  Blake  was  an  emotional  belief  in  a  perfect  world 
in  which  a  man  could  live  within  absolute  beauty, 
life,  and  love.  This  faith,  with  its  inspiration, 
hurries  its  possessor  beyond  the  world  of  sense 
into  the  spiritual.  Not  finding  food  enough  on 
earth  for  its  longing  after  perfect  beauty,  love,  and 
knowledge,  it  creates  a  realm  beyond  this  earth, 
where  sorrow  is  not,  nor  old  age,  nor  any  law  but 
love,  and  where  the  powers  of  genius  immediately 
shape  the  conceptions  of  imagination.  This  desire, 
rising  far  away  in  early  human  nature,  but  in  the 
rudest  forms,  was  at  first  only  naturalist.  It  passed 
into  romanticism  when  it  built  up  in  thought  a 
beautiful  and  perfect  earth  and  sky,  hidden  away  in 
the  unknown  oceans,  where  all  was  peace  and  love, 
and  death  was  not,  nor  pain,  nor  storm.  The  early 
church  created  it  in  the  home  of  the  Phosnix  for 
the  Latin  race.  The  mediaevals  placed  it  in  the 
fairy  world  where  Ogier  and  his  fellows  found 
immortal  loves.  The  Irish  invented  Tir-na-nogue, 
where  Oisin  lived  three  hundred  years  in  joy. 
It  is  in  his  exalting  and  changing  the  form  of 
this  conception  that  we  meet  in  Blake  all  the 
romanticism  of  which  he  was  now  capable.  He  has 
escaped  from  this  limited  and  dying  world  into  an 
infinite  and  living  world  where  all  the  sorrows  of 
earth  are  not.  The  world  of  Ogier  and  Oisin  is  still 
material.  Blake's  world  is  immaterial.  We  fools 
only  believe,  he  says,  in  what  we  perceive,  and  what 


40  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

we  perceive  Imprisons  us.  We  are  really  In  an 
Illimitable,  multitudlnously  peopled  universe  of  Being ; 
^  and  he  called  on  us  to  loosen  ourselves  from  the 
bondage  of  phenomena,  and  to  flee  into  the  infinite 
liberty  of  this  spiritual  realm.  He  did  not  put  this 
beautiful  world,  into  the  future  or  far  away.  We 
could  live  In  It  now,  If  we  chose,  In  Innocence 
and  unconsciousness  of  self ;  In  eternity  and  omni- 
presence ;  In  the  sinless  freedom  from  all  restrictive 
law  which  is  the  dowry  of  perfect  love  ;  in  tender 
joy,  freed  from  fear,  jealousy,  and  base  desire  ;  in 
that  Incessant  outgoing  of  love  which,  ever  moving 
away  from  self,  finds  Itself  at  home  In  every  grain  of 
a  universe  which,  made  by  the  married  Thought  and 
Love  of  Deity,  rejoices  for  ever  In  the  Beauty  which 
pervades  it,  and  which  is,  It  knows,  the  offspring  of 
Divine  Thought  and  Love.  '  Poor  prisoners,'  Blake 
thought,  '  of  false  imaginings,  enchained  by  sense, 
there  is  your  home,'  and  he  puts  the  longing  for  It 
Into  many  lovely  verses.  In  ^e  Land  of  Dreams y 
Earth  has  imprisoned  the  father  and  the  boy. 
The  poem  represents  the  passion  of  those  who  are 
limited  by  the  world  of  sense  to  escape  from  It : 

Awake,  awake,  my  little  Boy ! 
Thou  wast  thy  Mother's  only  joy  ; 
Why  dost  thou  weep  in  thy  gentle  sleep  ? 
Awake,  thy  Father  does  thee  keep. 

<  O,  what  Land  is  the  Land  of  Dreams  ? 
What  are  its  Mountains,  and  what  are  its  Streams  ? 
O  Father  !   I  saw  my  Mother  there. 
Among  the  Lillies  by  waters  fair. 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  41 

*  Among  the  lambs,  clothM  in  white, 

She  walked  with  her  Thomas  in  sweet  delight. 

I  wept  for  joy,  like  a  dove  I  mourn, 

O,  when  shall  I  again  return  ? ' 

Dear  Child,  I  also  by  pleasant  streams 

Have  wander'd  all  Night  in  the  Land  of  Dreams ; 

But  tho'  calm  and  warm  the  waters  wide, 

I  could  not  get  to  the  other  side. 

'  Father,  O  Father  !  what  do  we  here 
In  this  Land  of  unbelief  and  fear  ? 
The  Land  of  Dreams  is  better  far. 
Above  the  light  of  the  Morning  Star.' 

That  is  the  longing  in  Blake's  romanticism. 

Enough  has  been  now  said  (enough  for  the  scope 
of  this  essay)  of  Blake's  poetry  as  lyrical,  as 
naturalistic,  or  romantic.  Another  part  of  his  work 
— his  mystical  poetry — is  not  connected  with  the 
general  stream  of  English  poetry;  belongs  neither 
to  the  past  nor  the  future  of  his  time  ;  is  a  strange 
backwater  with  its  own  scenery,  its  own  flowers, 
its  own  animal  life.  We  may  take  our  boat 
into  it  out  of  the  main  stream,  and  row  about  its 
strange  waters,  and  forget  all  the  other  English 
poetry  for  a  time.  There  is  little  in  it  which  recalls 
the  other  poets.  It  is  chiefly  contained  in  the  Pro- 
phetic Books,  with  which  this  essay  is  not  concerned. 
It  appears,  however,  in  many  short  poems  which 
have  a  lyrical  air.  Some,  like  Mary^  the  Golden 
Net^  the  Mental  Traveller,  the  Crystal  Cabinet, 
William  Bondy  Long  John  Brown^  excite  an  intel- 
lectual   curiosity,    but    can    scarcely    be    said    to 


42  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

awaken  the  pleasure  that  poetry  ought  to  bring 
with  it.  What  can  be  said  for  them  is  said 
with  imaginative  penetration  by  Mr.  Swinburne. 
For  my  part,  I  desire  a  simpler  world.  It  is  only 
at  intervals,  when  the  mystic  worlds  open  like  fans 
before  transitory  moods,  that  men  will  love  to  sail  on 
the  mystic  water  of  this  blue  lagoon,  fed,  not  by  the 
river  of  English  poetry,  but  by  deep-set  fountains 
of  its  own.  It  demands  its  own  terms  and  it  is  not 
difficult  to  learn  them.  But  except  we  are  very 
curious  to  enter  into  its  region,  the  effort  is  scarcely 
worth  our  while,  at  least  so  far  as  the  Prophetic 
Books  are  concerned. 

But  with  regard  to  certain  lyrics  which  contain  or 
suggest  Blake's  views  of  religion,  morality,  and 
social  relations,  our  action  must  be  different.  Their 
mysticism  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  problems 
of  practical  life,  with  their  imaginative  and  spiritual 
treatment.  In  their  mysticism  appear  certain  stead- 
fast elements  which  belong  to  the  root  of  Blake's 
genius  and  character.  To  isolate  them  will  help  us 
to  the  further  comprehension  even  of  the  Songs  of 
Innocence^  much  more  of  the  Songs  of  Experience. 

The  religious  life  of  Blake  is  not  a  world  in 
which  morality  is  confused  with  religion.  The 
moralities  of  society  are  left  behind.  The  moral 
law  is  therein  abrogated,  or  rather,  as  law,  it  is 
non-existent.  Its  indwellers  love  what  is  right  and 
need  no  commands  and  no  forbiddings.  '  Thou 
shalt'  and  'thou  shalt  not'  have  no  meaning  there. 
One  does  not  command  a  mother  to  love  her  child, 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  43 

or  forbid  her  to  hate  it.  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of 
the  law,  and  as  a  restraining  power  law  ceases  to  be. 
That  which  the  law  orders  is  done,  not  because  of 
the  law,  but  because  of  love  of  goodness  and  love. 
Love  takes  duty  in  its  stride.  So  far  as  morality  is 
concerned,  this  was  the  view  of  Blake,  and  being 
an  imaginative  person  and  applying  this  principle 
at  many  out-of-the-way  points,  and  with  a  reckless 
individuality,  it  led  him  into  strange  places  of 
thought. 

With  this  view  of  love  as  the  sole  master 
of  life,  a  view  held  by  almost  every  mystic,  his 
religion  was  one  of  mysticism.  It  was  a  mysticism 
which  never  tried  to  reason  out  its  faith,  or  to  bind 
it  down  into  intellectual  propositions.  It  let  itself 
fearlessly  go  into  the  infinite  as  into  its  proper  home 
and  satisfaction.  Once  there,  it  felt  that  its  concep- 
tions, which  took  form  out  of  its  emotions  concern- 
ing God  and  man,  were  absolutely  right,  and  that 
their  rightness  needed  no  proof.  They  proved 
themselves  by  their  being.  They  were.  That  was 
enough.  Blake  felt  that  he  thought  with  God  and 
God  with  him.  And  when  he  thought  thus,  he  was 
God  and  God  was  he.     God  and  man  were  one. 

In  this  exalted  world  of  thought  and  its  emotion, 
the  general  opinions  of  society  and  of  churches  on 
religion  and  on  morality  were  not  only  thrown  aside 
by  Blake,  they  were  for  the  most  part  denounced 
and  abhorred  by  him.  All  reasoning  on  spiritual 
truths,  all  scientific  theology,  was  an  abomination. 
All  conventional  morality  was   devilish.     All   that 


44  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

belonged  to  the  senses  was  utterly  repudiated.  He 
does  not  care  if  his  convictions  violate  all  orthodox 
doctrine  and  all  orthodox  morality.  He  stands  out- 
side of  this  world  in  another,  and  from  that  other 
he  speaks.  With  fearless  step  and  with  determined 
air  he  marches,  resolute  in  his  individuality,  into  the 
most  tremendous  labyrinths,  and  losing  himself  often 
therein,  neither  confesses  nor  knows  that  he  is  lost. 
Nay,  in  losing  himself,  he  thinks  to  find  himself. 

In  speaking  of  the  Songs  of  Experience  I  said  that 
Blake,  looking  on  what  seemed  to  him  evil,  that  is 
on  any  violation  of  love,  saw  it  with  the  horror 
with  which  innocence  would  see  it.  That  was  not 
the  way  in  which  he  saw  merely  physical  evil.  He 
I  saw  the  pain  of  the  world  arising  from  the  course  of 
nature,  and  he  had  a  great  pity  for  it.  But  he  had 
no  horror  of  this,  no  hatred  of  it.  If  it  came  upon 
a  happy  inward  spirit,  it  was  so  balanced,  so  modified, 
that  it  was  scarcely  to  be  considered  as  an  evil.  It 
was  the  common  lot  of  man,  and  out  of  it  arose  or 
ought  to  arise  fortitude,  faith,  and  inward  joy. 

Joy  and  Woe  are  woven  fine, 
A  clothing  for  the  soul  divine. 
Under  every  grief  and  pine 
Runs  a  joy  with  silken  twine. 

The  case  was  different  when  he  saw  the  physical 
'^  and  spiritual  evil  brought  on  man  by  cruel  beliefs 
concerning  God,  by  intolerant  condemnations,  by 
restrictive  laws  which  used  force  to  promote  morality 
or  orthodox  belief.  He  pitied  those  who  suffered 
from  these  villainies,  but  he  turned  with  wrath  on 


f  UNIVERSITY   ) 

\^Au^r.^^ywiLLIAM  BLAKE  45 

those  who  made  them  sufFer.  He  denounced  in  his 
poems,  and  all  through  the  prophetic  books,  the 
priests  who  invented  an  unforgiving  God,  the 
theologians  who  maintained  the  rightness  of  the 
jealous  Jehovah  of  the  Jews,  the  atheists  (for  he 
struck  all  round)  who,  having  no  sense  of  the 
spiritual  love  which  releases  and  comforts  the  guilty, 
insisted  on  the  rigid  moral  law,  invented  over  again 
the  curse  of  its  rewards  and  punishments,  and  limited 
the  natural  outgoing  of  man's  natural  desires. 

These  commandment-makers  —  the  enemies  of 
love,  the  supporters  of  hatred  and  cruelty,  tyrants 
who  used  force  to  blockade  the  liberty  of  the  soul — 
were  the  cause  of  the  real  evil  of  the  world.  He 
is  never  weary  of  picturing  the  devastation  they 
make,  and  the  wickedness  of  their  work. 

Love,  not  law,  was  the  test  of  all  action.  Where 
love  was,  there  was  righteousness ;  where  law  was, 
sin  was  sure  to  be.  The  law,  by  forbidding, 
awakened  the  desire  to  sin.  Where  love  was,  freedom 
was  ;  where  law  ruled,  slavery  prevailed.  Where 
love  lived,  forgiveness  reigned  and  saved  ;  where 
law  was  master,  cruelty,  oppression,  and  misery 
degraded  the  conscience,  weakened  the  intelligence 
and  destroyed  the  body  and  soul  of  men.  This  re- 
straining law  was  imposed  on  man  by  the  Jehovah 
of  the  Jews,  whom  Blake  looked  on  as  a  severe 
Pharisee,  and  whose  image  was  made  by  the  selfish, 
exacting,  oppressive,  unforgiving,  jealous,  and  en- 
slaving elements  in  the  nature  of  man. 

From  this  hard,  angry,  exacting  God,  who  forced 


46  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

man  to  sin  when  he  laid  down  the  fierce  sanctions  of 
the  law — our  Great  Forbidder,  as  Eve  called  him 
in  Milton's  poem — ^Jesus,  Blake  declared,  had  set 
us  free.  He  took  away,  so  far  as  it  forbade,  re- 
strained, and  commanded,  the  moral  law,  and  gave 
us  back  to  love. 

He  laid  His  hand  on  Moses'  Law  ; 
The  ancient  heavens,  in  silent  awe,  i 

Writ  with  Curses  from  Pole  to  Pole, 
All  away  began  to  roll. 

Jesus  did  not,  of  his  own  will,  punish  sin.  It  had  to 
reap  its  results,  but  He  was  not  angry  with  it.  He 
forgave  it  utterly.  And  in  forgiving  it.  He  saved 
us  from  it.  Sin  could  not  live  in  a  man  when  he 
knew  it  was  forgiven  by  God.  When  Jesus  destroyed 
'thou  shalt*  and  'thou  shalt  not,'  He  established  in 
their  stead  the  forgiveness  of  infinite  love.  The  true 
punishment  of  sin  was  God's  forgiveness  of  it ;  and 
the  forgiveness  was  also  its  redemption.  And  this 
was  just  as  true  for  man  in  his  relation  to  God. 
Not  till  men  forgave  God  for  all  the  ill  they 
thought  He  had  done  to  them  could  they  love  God, 
and  lose,  in  that  love  and  in  their  own  loving  which 
forgave,  the  sense  of  sin  and  the  desire  to  sin.  God's 
forgiveness  of  man  and  man's  forgiveness  of  God, 
these  were  the  gates  of  paradise.  They  were  built 
and  established  by  love,  and  love  itself  was  paradise. 
Then  Blake  carried  this  doctrine  of  forgiveness 
further — to  the  relation  between  m.an  and  man. 
We  are  bound  to  forgive  all  wrong  done  to  us,  be- 
cause we  ourselves  do  wrong  to  our  fellows  and  need 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  47 

their  forgiveness  ;  and  our  salvation  and  that  of  our 
comrades  lie  in  our  mutual  forgiveness.  When  we 
resent  the  injuries  another  has  done  us,  we  increase 
his  injuriousness,  and  we  nourish  our  own  anger 
into  greater  desire  to  do  wrong  to  him  ;  but  when 
we  forgive  his  hatred,  we  forget  our  own,  and  we 
set  the  other  free  from  his.  Till  we  are  forgiven 
we  must  go  on  hating  and  injuring  and  sinning. 
^  I  have  forgiven  you/  cries  one  wrong-doer  to 
another,  ^  and  you  are  redeemed.  When  wilt  thou 
redeem  me  by  forgiving  me  ?  Then  the  salvation 
of  both  will  be  fulfilled.' 

And  throughout  all  Eternity 
I  forgive  you,  you  forgive  me. 
As  our  dear  Redeemer  said : 
This  the  Wine  and  this  the  Bread. 

In  forgiveness  of  sins  there  is  self-annihilation. 
When  absolute  forgiveness  is  given  by  all,  there 
is  soon  nothing  left  to  forgive.  It  is  the  avenging 
punishment  of  sin  which  makes  fresh  sin  ;  it  is  the 
ruthless  punishment  of  crime  which  doubles  crime. 

Then  he  applied  this  doctrine  of  love  issuing  in 
forgiveness,  of  love  setting  men  free  from  restrict- 
ing law,  to  human  life  ;  and  first  with  regard  to 
the  desires  and  passion  of  love  between  the  sexes. 
These  desires  were  natural  and  in  themselves  not 
wrong.  It  was  the  laws  made  by  priests  to  restrict 
and  bind  them  down  which  turned  their  satisfaction 
into  sin  ;  and  those  who  condemned  the  satisfaction 
of  them  as  the  worst  of  sins  were  far  more  guilty 
than  those  they  condemned.    The  weakness  of  desire 


48  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

yielded  to  through  love,  even  when  It  was  wrong, 
would  have  far  more  excuse  with  God  than  the 
calculated  repression  of  desire  when  it  ended  in  the 
moral  pride  that  condemned  those  that  erred,  and 
in  the  cruelty  which  ruined  their  lives.  The  harlot 
who  really  loved  would  have  more  forgiveness  from 
God  than  the  intolerant  Pharisee  who  thought  her 
touch  defilement ;  or  than  the  ascetic  who,  having 
crushed  in  himself  the  impulse  of  passion,  set  him- 
self to  crush  it  out  of  humanity. 

Then  he  took  the  same  principle  of  the  evil  of 
restriction  into  the  realm  of  mutual  love.  In  the 
short  poem  of  The  Clod  and  the  Pebble  he  contrasts 
two  forms  of  human  love.  One  is  a  love  which 
always  makes  a  heaven.  It  does  not  bind  love 
down  by  any  selfish  chains.  It  has  neither  jealousy 
nor  fear  nor  forbidding  nor  commands.  The 
other  love  binds,  is  jealous,  irritates,  cries  out — '  I 
must  have  all  to  myself.'  It  is  not  love  at  all,  it  is 
self-love  ;  and  it  makes  life  a  hell. 

*  Love  seeketh  not  Itself  to  please, 
Nor  for  itself  hath  any  care, 

But  for  another  gives  its  ease, 

And  builds  a  Heaven  in  Hell's  despair.' 

So  sung  a  little  Clod  of  Clay, 
Trodden  with  the  cattle's  feet. 
But  a  Pebble  of  the  brook 
Warbled  out  these  metres  meet : 

*  Love  seeketh  only  Self  to  please, 
To  bind  another  to  Its  delight, 
Joys  in  another's  loss  of  ease. 

And  builds  a  Hell  in  Heaven's  despite.' 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  49 

The  children  of  this  emprisoning,  evil  form  of  love 
are  jealousy  which  tortures  and  fear  which  degrades, 
and  it  has  made  love  into  a  violation  of  love. 
'  Return/  cries  the  bard,  to  Earth,  '  resume  your 
ancient  and  lovely  realm  ;  set  love  free/  And  Earth 
answers,  her  locks  covered  with  grey  despair, '  I  can- 
not ;  jealousy,  selfish  fear,  enforced  abstinence  have 
chained  me  and  my  indwellers.  I  am  cursed  by  a  law 
which  has  made  me  sin  and  forced  me  to  know  it/ 

Break  this  heavy  chain 

That  does  freeze  my  bones  around. 

Selfish  !  vain  1 

Eternal  bane ! 

That  free  Love  with  bondage  bound. 

This  is  the  motive  of  a  number  of  lyrics  varied 
through  various  circumstances.  'To  my  Mirtle^  though 
one  of  the  shortest,  is  perhaps  the  most  forcible. 

To  a  lovely  mirtle  bound. 
Blossoms  show'ring  all  around, 
O  how  weak  and  weary  I 
Underneath  my  mirtle  lie ! 
Why  should  I  be  bound  to  thee, 
O  my  lovely  myrtle  tree : 

"the  Angel,  A  Little  Girl  Lost,  To  Tirzah,  My  Pretty 
Rose  Tree,  all  illustrate  this  view  of  his — that  the 
limitations  of  love,  created  by  law,  have  been  fatal 
to  the  happiness  and  goodness  of  man.  In  one  fierce 
verse  he  cries  aloud  his  anger  at  one  result  of  the  law  : 

Abstinence  sows  sand  all  over 

The  ruddy  limbs  and  flaming  hair, 

But  Desire  Gratified 

Plants  fruits  of  life  and  beauty  there. 
D 


50  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

Then  he  turns  on  the  religion  which  has  adopted 
the  pharisaic  view  of  love.  It  says  '  thou  shalt 
not  *  to  all  bodily  desires ;  it  invents  new  sins, 
doubles  and  trebles  the  restrictions  of  natural  pas- 
sion, and  is  the  curse  of  mankind.  By  this  iniquity 
the  Garden  of  Love  is  turned  into  a  black  grave- 
yard : 
-  *v  y  1  went  to  the  Garden  of  Love, 

And  saw  what  I  never  had  seen : 
A  Chapel  was  built  in  the  midst, 

Where  I  used  to  play  on  the  green. 

And  the  gates  of  this  Chapel  were  shut, 
And  « Thou  shalt  not '  writ  over  the  door ; 

So  I  turned  to  the  Garden  of  Love 
That  so  many  sweet  flowers  bore ; 

And  I  saw  it  was  fillM  with  graves, 

And  tombstones  where  flowers  should  be : 

And  Priests  in  black  gowns  were  walking  their  rounds. 
And  binding  with  briars  my  joys  and  desires. 

It  is  fitting  to  state  plainly  these  views  of  Blake 
on  a  delicate  subject.  They  underlie  far  more  of 
his  poems  than  those  I  have  mentioned.  Their 
spirit  runs  even  through  the  Songs  of  Innocence. 
It  pervades  some  of  the  prophetic  books,  into  whose 
labyrinths  I  do  not  venture  here.  It  appeared 
frequently  in  his  conversation.  It  amazed  some 
friends,  it  distressed  others,  and  it  was  one  of  the 
reasons  why  he  was  called  mad.  It  was  a  beloved 
theory,  but  it  always,  with  Blake,  remained  a  theory. 
It  was  never  put  into  practice.  The  man  was  as 
innocent  of  indulgence  as  the  dawn.  He  knew 
that  in  a  world  socially  constituted  as  his  and  ours. 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  51 

free  love  would  entail  untold  sorrow  and  shame  on 
women,  even  on  men  ;  and  therefore  to  practise  it 
would  be  a  sin  against  love  who  was  his  master 
spirit.  In  this  matter  then,  while  he  held  to  his 
principle,  he  omitted  its  practice  ;  he  would  even 
have  condemned  it  till  the  whole  spirit  of  society 
was  changed  from  selfishness  to  love. 

There  are  many  who  hold  these  views  but  who 
never  put  them  into  action.  But  they  speak  of 
them  as  a  protest  against  those  who,  dividing  the 
body  from  the  soul,  have  made  the  natural  desires 
of  the  body  into  stains  on  the  soul,  and  have  by 
savage  legality  created  sins  and  multiplied  sins. 
Again,  there  are  many  who  hold  these  views  and 
practise  them  recklessly,  and  then  they  have  been 
the  cause  of  some  of  the  greatest  villainies  that  have 
defiled  the  earth.  I  do  not  think  that  Blake  would 
have  had  any  mercy  on  such  men  till  they  passed 
from  the  state  of  selfishness  into  that  of  love.  In- 
dulgence of  this  kind  for  the  sake  of  money  or 
lust  or  power,  for  any  reason  whatever  except  that 
of  real  love,  would  have  been  abhorrent  to  his 
spiritual  nature,  which,  on  the  other  hand,  took  up 
into  the  spiritual,  and  indeed  as  part  of  it,  all 
bodily  desires  directed  by  true  love.  The  whole 
theory,  which  is  common  enough  in  the  thought 
of  men  and  women,  is  a  theory  which,  while  the 
world  is  as  it  is,  plays  with  fire.  As  long  as  those 
who  hold  it  refrain  from  acting  it,  we  may  discuss 
it  as  a  theory,  especially  as  behind  it  sits  the  truth 
— that  there  is  no  true  union  which  is  not  of  love. 


52  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

The  principle  here  applied  to  sexual  relations — that 
the  law  by  its  restrictions  made  sin  ;  that  the  freedom 
which  came  of  love  made  right — Blake  applied  else- 
where; to  education  and  to  religion.  In  education,  all 
restraint  laid  upon  the  young  was  wrong,  and  spoiled 
the  child.  Children  were  born  for  joy ,  and  were  natu- 
rally good.  They  will  grow  into  greater  goodness 
if  we  let  them  live  freely  in  their  joy  ;  when  they 
are  happy  they  are  good.  It  is  commanding  this, 
forbidding  that,  which  makes  them  into  evil-doers. 
Even  forcing  them  to  learn  is  a  pity.  If  we  let 
them  learn  of  their  own  impulse,  lead  them  gently 
into  what  will  interest  them,  they  will  get  more  of 
what  is  right  for  them,  of  what  they  can  use  well 
and  beautifully,  than  they  will  by  enforced  educa- 
tion. '  Thou  shalt  *  and  '  thou  shalt  not '  spoil  the 
whole  nature  of  the  child  and  injure  his  future  life. 

O  !  father  and  mother — if  buds  be  nip'd 

And  blossoms  blown  away, 

And  if  the  tender  plants  are  strip'd 

Of  their  joy  in  the  springing  day 

By  sorrow  and  care's  dismay, 

How  shall  the  summer  arise  in  joy 

Or  the  summer  fruits  appear, 

Or  how  shall  we  gather  what  griefs  destroy, 

Or  bless  the  mellowing  year. 

When  the  blasts  of  winter  appear  ? 

That,  at  any  rate,  is  true.  All  our  education, 
domestic  and  national,  vitally  needs  this  principle 
as  its  foundation. 

In  like  manner  the  principle  was  applied  by  Blake 


WILLIAM  BLAKE  53 

to  religion.  Love  was  its  first  law,  if  that  could 
be  called  law  which  by  its  very  nature  was  beyond 
all  law.  Love  left  the  spirit  free  to  move  into  the 
illimitable.  Its  world  was  above  that  of  the  senses 
which  deceived  the  soul.  It  was  equally  above  the 
work  of  the  intellect  when  it  forbade  the  spirit  to 
transcend  its  demonstrations.  The  passion  of  the 
spirit  for  God,  for  perfection,  for  immortal  life,  and 
all  the  spiritual  truths  that  aspiring  passion  led  us  to 
conceive,  were  seized  on  by  the  intellect,  which  had 
no  business  to  touch  these  infinite  matters,  and  shut 
up  in  a  prison  of  formulas.  The  moods,  the  aspira- 
tions, the  forms,  the  free  expansion  of  the  spirit  of 
man  into  endless  varieties  of  religious  feeling  and 
expression,  were  forced  to  live  under  the  intolerant 
cruelties,  and  in  the  choking  atmosphere  of  creeds, 
confessions,  and  an  enforced  ritual.  Men  were 
restricted  at  every  point  of  the  spiritual  life.  This, 
as  before,  was  the  curse  of  the  world.  Love  was  now 
cabined,  cribbed,  confined.  Fear,  oppression,  slavery 
were  its  masters.  The  fear  of  God  replaced  the 
love  of  God,  and  He  was  made  by  the  wicked  makers 
of  these  restraints  jealous,  angry,  unforgiving,  an 
irresponsible  judge,  anything  but  a  father.  Love 
was  thus  destroyed  in  men,  and  faith  perished  along 
with  love.  And  immediately  superstition,  which 
is  fear  and  ignorance  of  God,  was  born  again  in 
humanity  after  Jesus  had  slain  it.  The  spirit  of 
life  in  religion,  which  is  the  spirit  of  love,  was  now 
subjected  by  a  priestcraft  which  called  itself  Chris- 
tianity to  an  outward   law  again,  and  crushed   by 


54  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

It.  There  were  those  who  yielded  to  its  evil  power, 
and  they  were  degraded  Into  a  slavery  of  the  reason 
and  the  soul.  There  were  those  who  resisted  and 
denied  this  evil  power,  who  abjured  the  law  and  set 
up  love  as  their  king,  who  proclaimed  forgiveness 
as  God's  justice,  who  made  no  restriction  on  the 
way  In  which  men  thought  and  felt  about  religious 
truth,  who  let  faith  and  love  create  with  freedom 
their  own  forms  and  their  own  ritual.  These  were 
the  martyrs  of  the  sorrowful  earth ;  driven  by 
priests,  churches  and  sects  out  of  a  world  which 
was  not  worthy  of  them,  slain  In  torment,  made  to 
walk  with  lions.  In  a  terrible  poem  Blake  embodies 
this  view.  It  Is  too  long  to  quote,  but  its  title  is 
A  Little  Boy  Lost. 

He  lived  till  he  was  near  seventy.  He  was 
always  poor,  always  unfamed,  and  always  happy. 
There  is  a  story  of  a  beautiful  lady  who  was  one 
day  brought  to  see  him.  He  looked  at  her  and 
said,  '  May  God  make  this  world,  my  child,  as 
beautiful  to  you  as  It  has  been  to  me.'  Thus, 
formed  of  love  and  joy,  his  constant  life  was  Praise 
of  God.  ^  What,'  he  said  once,  and  It  reminds  us 
of  a  phrase  of  Handel's,  *  what,  when  the  sun  rises, 
do  you  see  ?  A  round  disc  of  fire,  something  like 
a  guinea  !  O  no,  no,  I  see  an  Innumerable  company 
of  the  heavenly  host  crying — 

Holy,  Holy,  Holy  is  the  Lord  God  Almighty.' 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 


This  essay  will  treat,  first,  of  the  relation  of  the 
poetry  of  Scott  to  the  time  in  which  he  lived,  then 
of  the  poetry  itself,  and  lastly,  of  its  relation  to  the 
previous  Scottish  poetry.  But  before  I  come  to 
these  things  I  will  draw  attention  to  the  most 
remarkable  power  of  his  poetry  ;  its  power  of 
kindling  romantic  feeling  for  the  past,  that  romantic 
feeling  which  is  mingled  of  love,  reverence,  and 
wonder — love  of  the  beauty  of  the  past  in  splendour 
of  pageant  and  procession  and  dress  and  buildings, 
in  battle  and  battle  array,  in  religion  and  art ; 
reverence  for  its  noble  deeds  and  sacrifices,  its 
chivalrous  adventures  for  love  or  honour,  its  spirit 
of  high  courage  and  faithfulness  in  war  and  peace, 
its  contempt  for  a  base  or  a  material  life,  its  care- 
lessness of  wealth  and  of  pain  and  death  when  com- 
pared with  honour  ;  its  quick,  frank,  and  noble 
passions,  out  of  which  natural  poetry  continually 
arose ;  its  ideal  of  the  knightly  spirit ;  its  open-handed 
expenditure  of  time  and  money,  without  ignoble 
restriction,  for  the  sake  of  love,  for  the  sake  of 
beauty,  for  the  sake  of  the  future,  and  for  the  sake 
of  the  state  and  religion ;  and,  finally,  wonder  for 

65 


56  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

its  mysteries  of  thought  and  feeling,  in  love,  in 
superstition,  in  legend,  in  transmuted  myths  of 
nature,  in  the  wild  tales  of  the  wild  creatures  of 
moor  and  mountain  lands  and  wood,  in  the  imagina- 
tions of  faery  and  of  the  far-off  islands  where  dwelt 
the  ever-living  in  peace  and  joy.  Nor  can  I  omit 
those  strange  and  often  noble  aspirations  towards 
the  wonders  of  the  unknown,  out  of  which  grew 
the  magic,  alchemy,  and  astrology  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  This  it  is  which,  in  all  its  forms,  Scott's 
poetry  has  the  power  to  kindle,  and  the  power  has 
blest  and  adorned  the  life  of  humanity.  Its  more 
particular  result  was  the  clothing  of  ancient  places 
belonging  to  his  own  country  with  a  robe  of 
romance  which  will  never  wear  out  as  long  as  the 
English  language  lasts ;  and  the  support  and  cherish- 
ing of  this  romance  in  the  mind  of  men,  and 
in  the  soul  of  the  young. 

As  to  the  first,  its  power  was  based  on  a  great 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  his  native  land,  on  a 
personal  exploration  of  the  border  lands  of  England 
and  Scotland  and  of  the  border  between  the  Lowlands 
and  the  Highlands.  He  had  walked  over  all  this 
wild  country  and  studied  its  natural  scenery,  its 
farmers,  its  ruder  indwellers,  its  ruined  peels  and 
castles,  its  tales  of  war  and  passions,  its  legends  and 
its  songs.  Nothing  escaped  that  observant  eye  or 
deserted  that  accurate  memory.  And  he  did  this 
work  and  retained  its  results  with  a  rare  intensity  of 
love  for  it  and  for  the  land  of  his  birth  which,  living, 
in  a  prolific  and  creative  imagination,  itself  thrilled 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  57 

always  with  wonder  and  delight,  made  every  valley, 
stream,  mountain,  woodland,  lake,  farmhouse,  castle, 
abbey,  village,  and  town  so  romantic  to  him  that  he 
clothed  them  with  romance  for  others.  The  whole 
land  became  alive,  walked  and  warred,  thought  and 
felt  with  passion,  spoke  and  sang.  The  very  names 
take  personality,  and  breathe  and  live,  and  his  use  of 
them  In  poetry  Is  one  of  the  most  brilliant  things  in 
literature. 

This  was  a  great  result  to  accomplish,  and  it 
acted  with  extraordinary  force  on  the  readers  of  his 
poetry.  It  filled  them  with  a  strong  desire  to  see 
and  know  the  country  in  which  so  much  romance 
of  the  past,  of  men  and  landscape,  still  existed.  It 
opened  out  the  land  to  eager  voyaging,  and  created 
the  eagerness  to  visit  it.  It  brought  romance  home 
to  the  hearts  of  men  and  women  and  balanced 
the  materialism  of  the  age.  And  when  once  this 
romantic  love  was  awakened  for  Scotland,  it  stirred 
men  to  feel  it  for  their  own  land,  for  its  scenery  and 
history,  and  for  all  its  past.  Englishmen  trained 
on  Scott  felt  quickly  the  romance  of  Canterbury, 
Windsor,  Plymouth,  of  the  villages  and  scenery  of 
Somerset,  of  Yorkshire,  of  Warwick.  Then  they 
applied  the  new  elements  in  their  soul  to  foreign 
landsj  and  in  Italy,  France,  Spain,  and  Germany 
made  the  places  they  visited  as  alive  as  Scott  had 
made  the  Lowland  and  the  Highland  border. 

In  all  this  cherishing  of  romance  In  the  minds  of 
men,  and  especially  of  the  young,  the  work  he  did 
was  beautiful;  and  it  continues,  and  will  continue,  to 


58  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

exercise  its  power.  I  am  sorry  for  the  children  who 
are  not  brought  up  on  the  poetry  of  Scott.  It  is  an 
excellent  foundation  for  the  appreciation  and  love  of 
all  other  poetry  ;  it  lays  up  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  care  for  it  elements  of  enchanting  pleasure  in 
after-life. 

My  father  waked  us  every  morning  with 
snatches  from  the  Lay^  from  Marmion^  and  the  Lady 
of  the  Lake^  and  the  day  was  haunted  with  their 
charm.  We  learnt  for  ourselves  more  than  half  of 
the  poems.  Wherever  we  played,  or  walked  on 
the  hills  or  by  the  sea,  Scott  taught  us  to  build 
up  tales  of  war  and  love  around  the  names  and 
scenery  of  the  places,  and  to  fill  them  with  romantic 
adventures.  The  first  expedition  I  made  after  I 
was  twenty-one  was  made  with  my  brother  to  Loch 
Katrine  and  the  Trosachs,  to  Glenfinlas  and  Stirling, 
and  it  was  one  long  ravishment ;  nor  did  I  enjoy 
Wordsworth,  who  was  then  my  companion,  the  less, 
but  the  more,  because  I  was  living  every  step  of  the 
way  with  Scott.  Many  years  afterwards,  when  years 
of  London  life  had,  as  I  thought,  lessened  the 
romantic  wonder,  I  went  north  and  found  myself  in 
the  early  morning  looking  from  a  height  over  a  castle 
famed  in  Border  minstrelsy,  and  beyond  it  lay  the 
Solway  and  its  hills,  Lanercost,  Askerten,  Bewcastle, 
Liddesdale,  Teviot  and  Eskdale,  and  on  the  right  the 
ridges  of  the  Roman  Wall,  the  valleys,  the  rolling  rig 
and  flow  of  the  Border  mosses  and  the  Border  hills. 
There  was  scarcely  a  single  name  of  river,  mountain 
or  sea-estuary,  castle  or  farmhouse,  which  was  not 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  59 

known  to  me  from  the  poetry  of  Scott.  I  leaned 
over  the  gate  and  looked  long  upon  the  poetic  land, 
and  it  seemed  as  if  all  the  dew  of  youth  fell  upon 
me  again,  as  if  I  were  again  in  the  ancient  world 
of  adventure,  romance,  love  and  war,  which  we 
have  replaced  by  science  and  philosophy,  trade  and 
misery,  luxury  and  poverty.  But  it  was  to  Scott  I 
owed  the  pre-eminent  pleasure  of  that  hour,  an  hour 
the  impression  of  which  I  kept  like  a  precious  jewel, 
and  which  I  have  never  lost. 

This  is  the  power  of  Scott,  and  this  a  result 
of  his  work.  Every  boy  and  girl  who  reads  him 
with  love  feels  the  same,  every  man  and  woman 
who  has  read  him  with  love  has  a  similar  experi- 
ence. It  is  a  great  power  and  a  great  result,  far 
more  important  than  those  imagine  who,  limiting 
themselves  to  the  poetry  of  thought  alone,  are 
apart  from  the  romance  of  the  past,  and  from  the 
freshening  spirit  it  brings  to  an  over-curious,  over- 
wearied, over-peopled  life.  To  be  the  voice  and  the 
inspirer  of  the  young  and  of  their  romance  ;  to  have 
their  praise,  which  is  contained  in  their  pleasure, 
from  age  to  age  ;  to  be  the  kindler  of  their  first 
joy,  in  nature,  in  ancient  historic  places,  in  the  story- 
telling of  wild  love  and  sorrow  ;  to  establish  that 
pleasure,  so  that  in  after-years  they  carry  with  them 
the  power  to  make  all  lands  romantic ;  to  nourish 
into  strength  and  passion  the  romantic  heart — this  is 
Scott's  enduring  fame  as  a  poet.  It  is  a  just  fame, 
worth  a  man's  life,  and  it  is  the  final  criticism  of 
his  place  as  a  poet  for  humanity. 


6o  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

Deep  in  the  general  heart  of  man 
J  His  power  survives. 

Having  said  this,  we  may  now  say  that  the  range 
of  his  poetry  was  closely  limited.  He  did  not  think 
much  of  his  own  poetry  ;  he  thought  too  little  of 
it.  He  felt  it  was  careless,  flowing  unrestrained, 
inaccurate  in  rhyme,  frequently  unimpassioned, 
sometimes  made  to  order,  without  any  depth  of 
thought.  And  these  things  are  often  true  of  it. 
He  stands  far  behind  Wordsworth,  Keats,  or 
Shelley.  His  truest  genius  belongs  to  prose.  But 
his  three  first  narrative  poems  are  brilliant  things, 
and  I  have  dwelt  on  their  romantic  power.  The 
rest  of  them  are  more  or  less  manufactured. 

He  was  greatest  in  his  lyrics.  Many  of  them 
are  poor  in  quality,  curiously  careless,  curiously  un- 
inspired. Others  are  brilliant  with  martial  fervour, 
with  the  gladness  of  battle,  with  the  cavalier  spirit. 
Others  are  full  of  the  woodland  spirit,  of  the 
morning  hunting,  of  the  joy  of  waking  into  a  new 
day.  And  some  are  of  an  exquisite  tenderness, 
solemnity,  evening  sadness,  and  spiritual  beauty,  so 
fine,  so  delicate,  even  so  subtle  in  feeling,  that  they 
place  him  for  the  moment  side  by  side  with  the 
great  poets.  Even  when  he  gave  up  poetry  as  a 
portion  of  the  work  of  his  life,  he  continued  in  his 
novels  to  write  now  and  then  lyrics  of  this  noble 
kind.  The  most  perfect  of  them,  the  ballad  of 
Proud  Maisie^  is  in  the  Heart  of  Midlothian^  and 
County  Guy,  lovely  with  its  atmosphere  of  the 
eternal  romance  of  evening  and  of  love,  comes  from 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  6i 

Qjientin  Durward,  But  these  belong  to  the  rapid 
asides  of  men  of  genius,  and  I  will  not  dwell  upon 
them  in  this  place.  Scott's  main  poetic  work  was 
that  of  narrative  poetry,  and  of  narrative  limited 
to  one  type.  Tiixie  has  settled  the  limits  of  their 
poetic  genius ;  and  no  one,  as  I  have  said, 
understood  those  limits  better  than  Scott  himself. 
When  he  had  finished  his  first  three  poems,  the 
Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel^  Marmioriy  and  the  Lady 
of  the  Lake^  he  knew  that  he  had  got  all  the 
best  ore  out  of  this  vein,  and  that  there  was, 
apart  from  his  lyrics,  only  this  one  vein.  He 
followed  these  first  poems  with  Rokeby^  the  Lord  of 
the  Isles^  and  the  Bridal  of  Triermain^  all  in  the  same 
class,  but  they  were  done  not  for  their  own  sake,  but 
rather  with  the  express  purpose  of  getting  money 
to  build  and  settle  his  house.  They  bear  the  mark 
of  effort.  The  old  lightness  of  touch,  the  gallop 
over  the  moors  of  poetry,  if  I  may  use  such  a  meta- 
phor, the  natural  drifting  of  the  narrative,  the  swift, 
passionate,  and  clear  view  of  nature,  the  romantic 
childlikeness  of  the  work,  are  all  wearied.  And  he 
practically  left  poetry  behind  in  1814,  when  he 
found  the  first  chapter  of  Waverley  in  a  drawer 
of  his  table,  and,  finishing  the  book,  began  a  new 
career  and  a  greater  fame. 

That  date,  or  better,  perhaps,  18 15,  may  be  said 
to  close  the  poetic  life  of  Scott.  Don  Roderick^ 
'Triermain^  Rokeby  were  published  before  1814  ;  the 
Lord  of  the  Isles  appeared  in  18 15.  The  date 
enshrines  a  remarkable  coincidence.     It  marks  the 


62  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

passing  away  of  the  poetry  which  was  influenced 
so  largely  by  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. When  the  ideas  of  the  Revolution  appeared 
again  in  the  poetry  of  Shelley  and  Byron,  they 
clothed  themselves  in  other  garments  than  those 
they  wore  in  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth  and 
Coleridge.  These  men,  with  various  power  and 
depth,  represented  in  their  earlier  poems  the 
enthusiasm  belonging  to  those  ideas  ;  then  in  later 
poems  the  reaction  from  them  ;  then  the  indigna- 
tion which  the  false  and  treacherous  form  into 
which  Napoleon  threw  them  awakened  ;  then  the 
sympathy  with  which  the  struggle  of  England 
for  liberty  against  Napoleon  was  received  by  the 
world  ;  then  the  exhaustion  when  the  struggle  was 
over,  in  which  exhaustion  poetry  ceased  to  be 
moved  by  any  public  interest  or  public  emotion 
in  the  present,  and  turned  either  to  the  past  or 
to  the  daily  human  life  of  the  passions  for  its 
subjects.  That  decay  of  the  revolutionary  impulse 
reached  its  nadir  in  1814  and  18 15.  The  battle 
of  Waterloo  is  not  only  an  historical,  it  is  a  poetic 
date. 

Scott  represents  the  reverse  side  of  the  revolu- 
tionary impulse,  and  his  representation  of  it  in 
poetry  came  also  to  a  close  in  18 14  and  1815. 
The  fall  of  the  Bastille  in  1789  was  the  fall  of  the 
old  regime,  and  it  awoke  no  enthusiasm  in  Scott. 
Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  celebrated  it  with  rap- 
ture. The  new  life  it  seemed  to  promise  for  man- 
kind they  sung  with  triumph  and  joy.     In  all  their 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  63 

poems  of  that  time  there  is  no  trace  of  any  love  of 
the  past ;  every  glance  is  fixed  on  the  future.  But 
exactly  the  opposite  is  the  position  of  Scott.  He 
felt  the  new  impulse,  heard  the  new  cry  ringing  in 
his  ears  ;  and  he,  the  Jacobite,  the  adorer  of  the 
old,  who  loved  an  adventure  of  Bruce  more  than 
the  overthrow  of  the  Bastille,  whose  spirit  lived  in 
the  ancient  while  his  body  moved  in  the  modern 
world,  saw  in  the  fresh  movement  of  humanity 
that  which  would  destroy  all  he  loved,  and  set  up 
all  he  hated  because  it  spoiled  what  he  loved. 
Therefore,  with  that  unconscious  working  of  genius 
towards  the  defence  of  what  is  greatly  loved,  and 
towards  its  beautifying  in  order  that  others  may 
love  it,  he  set  forth  in  1802  the  volumes  of  the 
Border  Minstrelsy,  in  which  he  had  collected,  re- 
vised, or  rewritten  the  ballads  ;  restored  the  scenery, 
the  manners,  the  adventures,  the  life  and  passions  of 
the  time  that  filled  his  thought  and  his  aifection. 
Perhaps,  he  thought,  I  may  stem  the  tide  which  is 
setting  towards  the  new  ;  at  least,  I  may  gather  under 
my  wing  all  those  who  love  and  cherish  the  past.  If 
it  is  to  vanish  away  for  ever,  we  shall  together  mourn 
its  fate.  Then  followed,  in  support  of  the  same 
protest,  the  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel^  and  the  very 
title  suggests  the  position  which  Scott  assumed.  The 
minstrel's  harp  was  his  '  sole  remaining  joy.'  *  His 
withered  cheek  and  tresses  gray  Seemed  to  have 
known  a  better  day.' 

The  last  of  all  the  Bards  was  he, 
Who  sung  of  Border  chivalry ; 


64  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

For,  well-a-day !  their  date  was  fled, 
His  tuneful  brethren  all  were  dead ; 
And  he,  neglected  and  oppressed, 
Wish'd  to  be  with  them,  and  at  rest. 

It  may  be  that  Scott  thought  in  1805,  when  this 
poem  was  published,  of  his  own  position  as  a  poet 
in  the  midst  of  a  world  which,  in  the  passion  of  a 
mighty  change  in  the  present,  ignored  or  despised 
the  past  it  had  overthrown,  and  sketched  himself  in 
the  Minstrel.  I  am  sure  that  the  description  of  the 
revival  of  the  minstrel's  spirit  when  he  heard  the 
long-forgotten  melody  of  his  youth,  is  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  temper  of  his  own  soul. 

But  when  he  caught  the  measure  wild 
The  old  man  raised  his  face,  and  smiled  ; 
And  lightened  up  his  faded  eye 
With  all  a  poet's  ecstasy ! 
In  varying  cadence,  soft  or  strong. 
He  swept  the  sounding  chords  along : 
The  present  scene,  the  future  lot. 
His  toils,  his  wants,  were  all  forgot ; 
Cold  diffidence,  and  age's  frost. 
In  the  full  tide  of  song  were  lost ; 
Each  blank,  in  faithless  memory  void, 
The  poet's  glowing  thought  supplied : 
And  while  his  harp  responsive  rung, 
'Twas  thus  the  latest  Minstrel  sung. 

It  pleased  him,  no  doubt,  that  the  success  of  the 
poem  was  so  great.  That  success  fell  in  with  the 
reaction  against  the  Terror,  with  the  horror  the 
aristocracy,  the  church,  the  landowners,  the  wealthy, 
felt  for  the  overthrow  of  all  the  privileges  which 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  65 

God  Himself,  they  believed,  had  conferred  on  them. 
The  ^  cultivated '  people,  hating  the  baser  sort  who 
had  risen  to  the  top  in  the  Revolution,  and  for- 
getting the  vast  villainies  of  the  ^  gentlemen '  of 
France,  went  back  in  their  judgments  to  the  times 
of  chivalry,  and  cried  that  the  high-hearted  romantic 
past  was  better  than  this  base  and  cruel  present. 
Even  those  who  clung  to  the  new  ideas,  while  they 
repudiated  the  form  given  to  them  by  France,  had 
pleasure  in  seeing  the  picture  of  the  past  in  poetry. 
To  make  this  impression  deeper,  Scott  wrote  Mar- 
mion  in  1808,  and  the  Lady  of  the  Lake  in  18 10. 
The  former  raised  his  reputation.  It  was  a  better 
poem  than  the  Lay  ;  but  it  did  not  make  the  past 
so  delightful  as  its  predecessor,  nor  exercise  the 
same  power  over  the  chivalric  imagination.  It  was 
not  so  romantic,  and  the  character  of  Marmion  was 
ignoble.     He  ill  represented  chivalry. 

The  Lady  of  the  Lake^  on  the  other  hand,  made 
thrill  with  romance  a  whole  land,  whose  memories 
were  of  the  past,  whose  Highland  indwellers  seemed 
to  belong  to  a  time  more  remote  than  that  of 
James  iv. ;  and  so  charmed  the  world,  that  it 
opened  up  the  lower  Highlands  and  their  history  to 
the  pilgrimage  and  the  imagination  of  all  English- 
speaking  peoples.  Yet,  even  as  Scott  began  the 
poem,  he  felt  that  the  power  he  had  was  only  suf- 
ficient to  carry  him  through  it  on  an  equal  wing. 
In  spite  of  the  poem's  immense  success,  he  under- 
stood in  his  secret  soul  that  this  kind  of  romantic 
poetry  was  apart  from  the  general  movement  of 


66  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

mankind,  and  that  it  must  pass  away.  His  force 
had  made  the  beautiful  dead  alive,  but  the  time 
was  near  at  hand  when  it  must  be  buried  ;  and  one 
of  the  verses  which  preface  the  Lady  of  the  Lake 
will  prove  this  sufficiently.  He  is  speaking  to  the 
Minstrel  Harp,  whose  burden  of  old  was  knight- 
hood's dauntless  deed  and  beauty's  matchless  eye. 

O  wake  once  more !   how  rude  soe'er  the  hand 

That  ventures  o'er  thy  magic  maze  to  stray ; 
O  wake  once  more !   though  scarce  my  skill  command 

Some  feeble  echoing  of  thine  earlier  lay  : 
Though  harsh  and  faint,  and  soon  to  die  away, 

And  all  unworthy  of  thy  nobler  strain. 
Yet  if  one  heart  throb  higher  at  its  sway. 

The  wizard  note  has  not  been  touched  in  vain. 
Then  silent  be  no  more !    Enchantress,  wake  again  ! 

With  force  of  fire  and  charm  he  struck  this  harp  ; 
but  never  again  did  the  strings  emit  the  same 
natural  and  noble  sound.  The  exhaustion  which  fell 
upon  the  other  poets  after  their  excitement  against 
the  past  and  for  the  present  fell  on  him  after  his 
excitement  for  the  past  against  the  present.  The 
reasons  why  both  were  tired  were  different,  but  the 
result  was  the  same ;  and  Waterloo  marks  the  final 
date. 

Afterwards  a  new  form  of  the  old  impulse  was 
represented  by  Byron  and  Shelley  and  others,  but 
the  first  poetic  warriors  who  sprang  to  their  feet 
at  the  fall  of  the  Bastille,  and  fought  for  or  against 
the  idea  it  crystallised,  retired  finally  from  that 
battle,  and  either  took  up  other  themes  or  gave 
up  writing  poetry  altogether.     Scott  did  the  latter 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  67 

thing,  and  he  records  his  exhaustion,  and  his  con- 
sciousness of  the  exhaustion  of  others,  in  verses 
scattered  among  his  inferior  poems.  He  speaks  of 
himself  and  his  brother  bards,  in  1 8 1 1 ,  as  weak 
minstrels  of  a  laggard  day,  timid  and  raptureless,  a 
faint  degenerate  band,  and  the  phrases  mark  how 
deeply  he  felt  the  apathy  of  imagination  which  had 
now  invaded  England.^ 

It  is  true  he  also,  like  the  other  poets,  threw  him- 
self with  all  the  excitement  he  could  muster  into 
the  struggle  which  preceded  Waterloo.  *  Who  that 
ever  shared  them,'  he  says,  ^  shall  forget 

The  emotions  of  the  spirit-rousing  time  !  '  2 

It  is  true  he  writes  with  studied  praise  of  Pitt,  of 
Nelson,  even  of  Fox,  of  those  who  fought  in  the 
great  war,  of  Brunswick,  of  Sidney  Smith,  of  Aber- 
cromby,  of  Wellington,  of  all  who  fell  at  Waterloo, 
of  the  whole  brave  fight,  maintained  well  through 
good  report  and  ill  in  his  country's  cause — 

In  thy  just  cause  and  in  thy  native  might, 
And  in  heaven's  grace  and  justice  constant  still; 

1  Here  is  the  passage  : 

But  we,  weak  minstrels  of  a  laggard  day, 

Skiird  but  to  imitate  an  elder  page. 
Timid  and  raptureless,  can  we  repay 

The  debt  thou  claim'st  In  this  degenerate  age  ? 
Thou  giv'st  our  lyres  a  theme  that  might  engage 

Those  that  could  send  thy  name  o'er  sea  and  land. 
While  sea  and  land  shall  last  5  for  Homer's  rage 

A  theme  j  a  theme  for  Milton's  mighty  hand — 
How  much  unmeet  for  us,  a  faint  degenerate  band  ! 

2  Lord  of  the  Isles,  canto  sixth,  i. 


68  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

but  the  strange  thing  is,  that  even  in  this  he  has  no 
real  fire.  He  writes  with  no  passion  ;  the  poetry  is 
powerless.  Wordsworth,  who  had  been  set  on  flame 
by  the  Revolution,  carried  his  fire  into  his  poetry 
against  Napoleon  and  for  the  fight  of  England  with 
Napoleon.  The  present  and  its  living  excitement 
had  entered  into  him.  Scott  could  not  even — his 
fire  as  a  poet  was  so  entirely  lit  from  the  past — be 
kindled  by  the  glory  and  sacrifice  of  the  war  in  the 
Peninsula  into  poetry  worthy  of  the  theme.  Of 
course,  as  a  citizen  he  was  greatly  stirred  by  the 
war  and  England's  victory,  but  not  as  a  poet.  It 
is  almost  absurd  to  read  his  patriotic  strains  con- 
cerning the  events  of  his  own  time,  so  cold,  so 
faded  are  they,  so  entirely  different  from  those  with 
which  he  celebrates  the  ride  of  Deloraine,  the  battle 
of  Flodden,  or  the  games  at  Stirling.  He  was  not 
of  the  world  in  which  he  was  born — as  long  as  he 
wrote  poetry. 

Hence  the  prevailing  temper  of  his  poetry  is 
sadness.  Ruskin  says  he  was  sad,  and  alleges  that 
the  age  was  sad,  and  Scott,  representing  it,  became 
sad.  But  the  age,  though  it  became  sad  (to  the 
poets,  not  to  the  nation)  in  1 8 1 5,  was  not  at  all  sad 
among  the  poets  in  1790,  in  1800,  in  18 10,  when 
Scott  was  young.  Much  of  the  sadness  in  his 
poetry  is  no  doubt  due  to  his  early  love  dis- 
appointment. It  coloured  his  whole  life.  But  there 
is  a  general  sadness  for  which  this  does  not  account, 
a  sadness  which  is  like  a  veil  over  all  his  poetry. 
And  the  real  truth  is  that,  as  a  poet,  it  was  his 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  69 

apartness  from  the  fresh  movements  of  his  age  that 
made  him  sad.  A  man  cannot  write  poetry  away 
from  the  main  drift  of  his  time  without  feeling — 
if  he  have  the  poet's  sympathy  with  humanity — his 
isolation,  and  the  more  sympathy  he  possesses  the 
more  he  feels  his  isolation  to  be  sorrowful.  The  age 
was  not  sad,  as  an  age,  save  among  the  poor,  whom 
the  war  reduced  to  utter  misery ;  but  their  cries  did 
not  reach  the  ear  of  Scott.  The  age  was  either  eagerly 
republican,  eagerly  patriotic,  or  eagerly  materialist, 
and,  as  the  last  conquered  in  the  end,  the  age  be- 
came not  sad,  but  contentedly  apathetic  to  ideas,  to 
anything  but  peace  and  pride  and  a  full  purse.  No, 
Scott's  sadness  was  the  sadness  of  one  who  had  no 
sympathy  for  the  present,  who  loved  the  past  and 
who  saw  that  the  past  was  ruined.  That  was  the 
true  root,  as  it  was  the  true  reason  that  his  poetic 
power  was  soon  exhausted.  He  had  but  one 
source  of  poetic  emotion,  and  the  source  of  that 
emotion  was  long  since  dead.  To  continue  mourning 
over  a  tomb,  and  worshipping  the  relics  in  it  kills 
at  last  passion,  intelligence,  and  power.  The  world, 
listening  to  the  wailing  voice,  is  wearied,  and  finally 
the  mourner  himself.  Scott  was  tired  ;  and  turned, 
in  his  desire  to  be  in  touch  with  a  living  humanity, 
to  paint  in  his  novels  the  feelings,  the  humour, 
the  daily  life  of  the  Scottish  people,  of  the  rich  and 
learned  and  poor  that  surrounded  him  ;  and  he  did 
this  even  in  the  novels  which  treated  of  the  past. 
The  novels  are  not  sad,  save  at  just  intervals.  In 
them  he  found  his  true  power,  his  true  joy,  and  his 


70  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

true  theme,  like  Wordsworth,  in  the  eternal  present 
of  the  human  heart. 

There  is   frequently  in  the  poems,   but  by  no 
means  always  in  the  prose,  a  sadness  in  his  descrip- 
tions of  the  ruins  of  abbey  and  castle  and  famous 
scenes  which,  when  he  wrote,  were  desolate.     He  is 
filled  with  regret  for  the  vanished    splendour,  the 
forgotten  deeds,  the  long  exhausted  wars,  the  great 
I  fighters  who  contend  no  more,  the  mouldered  world 
I  of  chivalry.     Turner,  the  painter,  often  expressed 
fthe  same  sadness.     Ruskin   seemed  to  think  that 
Turner  was  always   sad   when   he   painted    places 
filled  with  the  memories  of  the  past.     It  is  by  no 
means  always  so,  nor  is  it  so  always  in  the  novels 
of  Scott.     But  Turner  did  often  set  over  shattered 
castle,  desecrated  abbey,  ruined  town,  the  scarlet 
clouds  of  storm,  the  sad  and  peaceful  sympathy  of 
the  sunset,  the  calm  white  silence  of  a  regretful 
dawn.     On  the  other  hand,  like  Scott,  he  was  often 
just  as  joyful  of  heart.    No  man  has  ever  painted 
with  a  fuller  rapture  the  leaping  passion  of  sunrise  ; 
or  the  glory  of  the  sky  above  a  landscape  where,  in 
la  great  battle,  liberty  has  been  won.    He  painted  the 
spirit  of  the  place,  now  sad,  now  serene,  now  happy. 
For  example,  Scott's  description  of  Norham,  even  in 
its  glory,  sets  it  in  the  fading  light  of  sunset.     We 
hear  the  sorrow  in  the  tone  of  the  verse.     If  we  wish 
to  see  it  expressed  in  another  art,  and  in  harmony 
with  the  deep  regret  of  Scott,  we  have  only  to  look 
at   every  drawing   which  Turner  did  of  Norham. 
Some  of  them  are  of  sunrise  over  the  castle,  but  the 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  71 

glory  of  the   sunrise   in  them    only   enhances    the 
sorrow  of  the  broken  and  ruined  keep.     One  is  of 
sunset,  and  though  the  castle  is  in  a  golden  light, 
the  river,  swirling  by  the  rock  in  darkening  curves, 
is   tragic    with  the   purple    of  Tintoret.      Turner, 
like  Scott  at   Crichtoun   Castle,  in   that  inimitable 
phrase,  had  heard  the  streams  of  Tweed  ^repine.' 
And  the  poetry  of  Scott,   whenever  he  binds  upj 
natural  scenery  with  human  life,  is  sad  with  Turner.; 
The  loveliest  lines  he  writes  are  of  nature  in  the 
evening  hour,  and  he  almost  invariably  passes  from  \ 
it   into  sorrow,  or  the  memory  of  sorrow,  or  the- 
presentiment  of   it.     The   end   of   County    Guy   is, 
*  Where  is  County  Guy  ? '     The  end  of  '  The  sun 
upon   the  lake  is  low '  is  ^  Leonard  tarries  long,' 
and  the  fall  of  the  verse  in  those  perfect  pictures 
of  evening  always  suggests  to  me  a  prophecy  of 
trouble. 

Of  the  songs  which  have  to  do  with  human  life 
some  are  gay  enough,  but  the  best  are  songs  of 
sorrow ;  of  the  tragic  fates  that  smite  the  young, 
the  beautiful,  the  proud.  Rosabelle  perishes  in  the 
storm.  Maisie,  the  proud  lady,  hears  her  own  knell. 
The  Maid  of  Neidpath's  heart  is  broken.  The  true 
lover  dies  far  from  his  sweetheart  ;  the  false  lover 
dies  in  the  bloody  battle.  The  light  lover  rides 
away  and  leaves  the  girl  to  weep  ;  and  the  ballads 
that  bear  this  tragic  burden,  like  The  Eve  of  St. 
John^  are  the  best.  The  closing  verses  to  the  Lady 
of  the  Lake  pass  from  the  quietude  of  the  darkening 
hills,  and  the  deer  seeking  covert,  and  the  piping  of 


72  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

the  herd-boy  to  the  twilight,  to  the  remembrance 
of  the  dreadful  pain  of  life — '  the  secret  woes  the 
world  has  never  known/ 

When  on  the  weary  night  dawned  wearier  day, 
And  bitterer  was  the  grief  devoured  alone. 

Even  in  his  youth,  as  he  looked  back  upon  nature, 
there  is  this  sorrowful  note  : 

Blackford !  on  whose  uncultured  breast, 
Among  the  broom,  and  thorn,  and  whin, 
A  truant-boy,  I  sought  the  nest, 
Or  listed,  as  I  lay  at  rest, 

While  rose,  on  breezes  thin, 
The  murmur  of  the  city  crowd, 
And,  from  his  steeple  jangling  loud, 

St.  Giles's  mingling  din. 
Now,  from  the  summit  to  the  plain. 
Waves  all  the  hill  with  yellow  grain  ; 
And  o'er  the  landscape  as  I  look, 
Nought  do  I  see  unchanged  remain, 
Save  the  rude  cliffs  and  chiming  brook. 

To  me  they  make  a  heavy  moan. 

Of  early  friendships  past  and  gone. 

This  was  written  in  1 808.  The  note  is  still  more 
unhappy  in  18 17,  when  of  the  poetic  impulse  little 
remained  but  a  few  lyrics.  This  which  I  quote  is 
perhaps  the  most  personal  of  Sir  Walter's  poems  ; 
and  its  beauty  is  great. 

The  sun  upon  the  Weirdlaw  Hill, 

In  Ettrick's  vale,  is  sinking  sweet ; 
The  westland  wind  is  hush  and  still, 

The  lake  lies  sleeping  at  my  feet. 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  73 

Yet  not  the  landscape  to  mine  eye 

Bears  those  bright  hues  that  once  it  bore ; 

Though  evening,  with  her  richest  dye, 
Flames  o'er  the  hills  of  Ettrick's  shore. 

With  listless  look  along  the  plain, 

I  see  Tweed's  silver  current  glide. 
And  coldly  mark  the  holy  fane 

Of  Melrose  rise  in  ruin'd  pride. 
The  quiet  lake,  the  balmy  air. 

The  hill,  the  stream,  the  tower,  the  tree, — 
Are  they  still  such  as  once  they  were  ? 

Or  is  the  dreary  change  in  me  ? 

The  sadness,  as  I  have  said,  of  this  poem  is  mainly 
personal,  and  momentary.  Yet  it  falls  in  with  that 
general  note  in  his  poetry,  the  melancholy  of  which 
I  trace  to  the  feeling  underlying  his  poetic  work 
that  the  past  he  loved  was  out  of  harmony  with 
the  present ;  that  he  himself  in  his  poetry  was  apart 
from  his  age  and  the  hopes  of  men  in  it. 

Ruskin's  view  is  the  exact  opposite  of  this.  His 
statement  that  Scott  represented  the  sadness  of  the 
age  ought  to  prevent  our  ever  finding  Scott  happy 
in  man  or  nature,  but  we  know  that  this  sadness,  for 
the  most  part,  disappeared  in  his  novels  when  he 
did  get  into  close  union  with  the  human  life  of  his 
country.  Moreover,  it  disappears  when  in  his  poetry 
he  is  with  nature,  quite  alone  and  apart  from  man  ; 
or  when  he  is  excited  by  hunting  or  by  the  wild  war 
and  triumph  of  the  Highlander.  Even  Ruskin 
allows  Scott's  joy  in  the  natural  world,  nay,  he  in- 
sists upon  it.  When  Scott  lost  himself  in  absolute 
enjoyment  of  nature  he  lost  the  sense  of  his  apart- 


74  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

ness  from  his  age.  In  that  he  was  not  divided 
from  the  other  poets.  Deep  pleasure  in  nature  for 
her  own  sake  was  now  universal  in  poetry.  And 
when  Scott  had  forgotten  those  elements  in  the 
modern  world  which  he  hated,  and  felt  when  as  a 
child  he  read  his  first  ballads ;  when  he  found 
himself  in  a  place  like  the  Trosachs,  untrodden 
even  by  the  foot  of  the  shepherd,  he  flung  himself 
into  rejoicing,  delightful,  rich  and  keen  description 
— frankly  objective,  never  subjective,  never  weighted 
or  involved  with  thought,  always  of  the  visible, 
never  of  the  invisible  beneath  the  visible,  never  of 
the  spiritual  underlying  the  material.  Solitude  made 
him  happy,  and,  afar  from  men,  his  muse  drew  near 
to  him,  and  then  she  smiled.  *  My  muse,*  he  says, 
*  will  seldom  wake, 

Save  by  dim  wood  and  silent  lake  ; 
She  is  the  wild  and  rustic  Maid, 
Whose  foot  unsandall'd  loves  to  tread 
Where  the  soft  greensward  is  inlaid 

With  varied  moss  and  thyme; 
And,  lest  the  simple  lily-braid, 
That  coronets  her  temples,  fade, 
She  hides  her  still  in  greenwood  shade, 

To  meditate  her  rhyme. 
And  now  she  comes !     The  murmur  dear 
Of  the  wild  brook  hath  caught  her  ear, 

The  glade  hath  won  her  eye ; 
She  longs  to  join  with  each  blithe  rill 
That  dances  down  the  Highland  hill 

Her  blither  melody.' 

Now,  this  enjoyment  of  pure  nature  was  part  of 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  75 

the  poetic  movement  of  Scott's  time,  and  part  of 
the  ideas  out  of  which  grew  the  Revolution.  So 
far,  then,  we  may  say  that  he  was  in  harmony  with 
the  forward  ideas  of  his  time,  and  to  this  partial 
union  of  his  with  the  new  thoughts  of  men  I  may, 
I  think,  partly  trace  the  absence  of  sadness  in  his 
poetry  of  nature  when  he  wrote  of  her  for  her  own 
sake  only,  and  without  bringing  human  associations 
into  the  impressions  she  made  upon  him.  But  the 
joy  he  had  then  in  pure  nature  was  not  long-lived. 
He  needed  to  associate  her  beauty  with  the  soul  and 
the  works  of  man.^  That  also  we  come  to  need, 
but  we,  taught  by  such  men  as  Wordsworth,  asso- 
ciate it  with  the  human  interests  of  the  present  as 
well  as  with  the  history  of  the  past.  Scott  left  out 
the  present  in  his  poetry.  He  did  not  bind  up 
nature  with  humanity  as  it  moved  excitedly  forward 

1  *The  romantic  feelings  which  I  have  described  as  predominating  in 
my  mind  gradually  rested  upon,  and  associated  themselves  with,  the 
grand  features  of  the  landscape  around  me  ;  and  the  historical  incidents 
or  traditional  legends  connected  with  many  of  them  gave  to  my  ad- 
miration a  sort  of  intense  impression  of  reverence  which  at  times  made 
my  heart  feel  too  big  for  its  bosom.  From  this  time  the  love  of  natural 
beauty,  more  especially  when  combined  with  ancient  ruins,  or  remains 
of  our  fathers'  piety  or  splendour,  became  with  me  an  insatiable  passion 
which  I  would  willingly  have  gratified  by  travelling  over  half  the 
globe.' 

The  same  thought  is  touched  more  gracefully  in  the  epilogue  to  the 
Bridal  of  Triermain : 

But,  Lucy,  we  will  love  them  yet, 
The  mountain's  misty  coronet, 

The  greenwood,  and  the  wold  5 
And  love  the  more,  that  of  their  maze 
Adventure  high  of  other  days 

By  ancient  bards  is  told. 


76  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

in  his  own  time,  but  only  with  humanity  as  it 
moved  eagerly  in  the  past.  And  then,  of  course, 
his  nature  poetry  became  sad. 

I  may  perhaps  be  permitted  to  expand  this  par- 
ticular statement  further.  Scott,  with  his  peculiar 
hatred  of  the  new  ideas  concerning  man,  and  his 
retreat  to  the  past  because  of  that  hatred,  was  in 

'  a  confused  and  ill-fortuned  position.  He,  like  the 
rest  of  the  world  of  his  time,  had  gained  from 
the  ideas  which  preceded  the  French  Revolution 
the  love  of  wild  and  solitary  nature  ;  the  feeling  that 
we  should  find  in  her  an  answer  to  our  trouble,  a 
source  from  whom  we  might  draw  lessons  of  sim- 

.  plicity  of  feeling,  of  pure  sentiment  unmixed  with 
wrong,  of  greater  nearness  to  the  heart  and  life 
of  the  universe  ;  the  belief  that  in  such  communion 
we  should  find  both  peace  and  joy.  This  was  one 
of  the  ideas  which  filled  many  French  and  English 
writers  before  1789.  It  was  everywhere  afloat. 
The  fury  of  the  Revolution  blotted  it  out  for  a 
time,  but  it  belonged  to  its  original  ideas  ;  and  it 
grew  steadily  and  naturally,  uninterrupted  by  violent 
political  storm,  among  the  English  poets.  In  them 
it  was  slowly  harmonised  with  the  overthrow  of  the 
past  system  of  society  and  the  prophecy  of  a  new 
system  ;  and  in  them,  on  the  whole,  there  is,  after 
Young,  less  and  less  sadness,  and  more  and  more 
of  a  sacred  and  noble  joy  in  the  study  of  nature. 
When  the  progress  of  this  thought  had  reached 
Wordsworth,  nature  is  loved  for  herself  alone,  and 
the  past,  or  regrets  for  it,  rarely  intrude  into  the 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  77 

poetry  which  delights  in  her.  And,  finally,  when 
humanity  is  introduced  into  natural  description,  it 
is  chiefly  the  humanity  of  the  present,  not  of  the 
past,  the  simple  humanity  of  the  poor  whose  lives 
and  passions  the  ideas  of  the  Revolution  ennobled 
and  sanctified. 

Scott,  on  the  other  hand,  mixed  up  with  the  idea 
of  the  new  time  concerning  nature  other  thoughts 
which  belonged  to  the  old  time  ;  he  imposed  on  the 
solitudes  of  nature  and  on  her  loveliness,  seen  now 
in  the  wild  freshness  the  freed  spirit  of  man  con- 
ferred on  her,  regrets  for  a  vanished  glory.  When 
he  lived  with  Nature  he  was  a  child  of  the  new 
spirit,  but  he  combined  with  that  spirit  a  worship 
of  the  spirit  of  the  past.  Naturally,  the  two  did 
not  fit  or  mingle  into  harmony.  The  two  elements, 
one  drawn  from  the  living  present,  the  other  drawn 
from  the  dead  past,  produced  in  his  mind  a  con- 
fusion of  feeling,  and  made  him  sorrowful  as  a  poet. 

We  have  not  this  confusion.  We  can  mingle 
pleasure  in  the  memory  of  a  romantic  past  with 
pleasure  in  nature.  But  then  we  are  not,  as  Scott 
was,  in  the  centre  of  the  battle.  The  battle  is 
decided.  We  love  the  romantic  side  of  the  past, 
but  we  do  not  regret  it.  We  are  content  with  its 
death,  we  do  not  wish  to  bring  it  back  again.  Our 
feeling,  then,  is  unmixed  with  questioning,  with  any 
doubt  of  itself.  The  river  on  which  we  sail  when 
we  live  with  nature  ought  to  be  a  free  and  happy 
stream,  unless  we  are  fools  enough  to  gather  over 
its  waters  the  troubles  of  our  inner  life. 


78  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

As  the  years  went  on,  and  Scott  took  up  in  prose 
the  work  he  had  begun  with  poetry  ;  as  the  wrath 
he  felt  at  the  Revolution  lessened  with  its  over- 
throw ;  as  England  seemed,  after  Waterloo,  to  bring 
back  the  ideas  of  the  past — his  sadness  was  turned 
into  quiet,  and  pleasure  with  the  course  of  things  ; 
and  his  novels  have  lost  the  sadness  of  his  poetry. 
No  life  then  could  have  been  more  justly  happy 
than  his,  and  it  may  not  be  apart  from  this  portion 
of  my  essay  to  close  it  with  the  words  which 
Wordsworth  wrote  of  Sir  Walter  when  last  they 
met,  before  the  great  creator  went  to  Italy  to  seek 
the  health  Tweed  and  all  her  hills  could  not  afford 
him.  They  met  and  wandered  together  to  Newark, 
adown  the  vale  and  stream  of  Yarrow  ;  and  Words- 
worth, like  Scott  in  earlier  days,  saw  sorrow  in 
the  loveliness  of  nature,  for  him  with  whom  he 
walked  he  thought  he  should  see  no  more.  But  out 
of  sorrow  he  rose  into  a  brighter  thought ;  he  saw 
the  sunshine  of  spirit  which  had  brooded  over 
the  great  and  noble  life  which  Scott  had  lived. 
Nature  and  humanity  lived  in  his  work  ;  all  man- 
kind would  be  for  ever  grateful  to  him.  Therefore 
he  said  : 

And  if,  as  Yarrow,  through  the  woods, 

And  down  the  meadow  ranging, 
Did  meet  us  with  unahered  face. 

Though  we  were  changed  and  changing ; 
If,  then,  some  natural  shadows  spread 

Our  inward  prospect  over, 
The  soul's  deep  valley  was  not  slow 

Its  brightness  to  recover. 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  79 

For  thou,  upon  a  hundred  streams, 

By  tales  of  love  and  sorrow. 
Of  faithful  love,  undaunted  truth. 

Hast  shed  the  power  of  Yarrow ; 
And  streams  unknown,  hills  yet  unseen. 

Wherever  they  invite  thee. 
At  parent  Nature's  grateful  call. 

With  gladness  must  requite  thee. 

It  is  not  nature  only  who  makes  that  call  for  grati- 
tude, but  the  heart  of  man. 

Blessings  and  prayers  in  nobler  retinue 

Than  sceptered  king  or  laurelled  conqueror  knows 

Follow  this  wondrous  Potentate. 

They  follow  him  still,  and  will  follow  him  evermore. 


II 

It  is  well  now,  before  I  pass  to  the  hereditary 
elements  in  Scott's  poetry,  to  say  something  more 
particularly  of  the  poems  themselves.  No  one 
claims  him  as  one  of  the  greater  poets  ;  and,  though 
the  immense  success  of  his  poems  might  have 
flattered  another  man  into  making  this  claim,  it  did 
not  for  a  moment  induce  Scott  to  make  it.  On  the 
contrary,  he  had  too  low  an  opinion  of  his  poetic 
work,  and  disparaged  it  too  much.  What  he  liked 
in  it  was  its  unconfined  rush,  its  freedom  from 
artificial  rules,  its  natural  wild  carelessness — 

wild  as  cloud,  or  stream,  or  gale. 
Flow  on,  flow  unconfined,  my  Tale ! 


8o  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

He  knew  he  could  not  do  what  the  loftier  poets 
could  do,  and  he  did  not  try  to  reach  their  goal. 
But  all  the  more,  he  determined  to  use  frankly 
the  powers  he  had,  and  to  let  them  have  their  bold 
and  happy  way.  This  was  his  wisdom  ;  and  it  is 
part  of  his  clear-seeing,  lovable  character,  in  which 
there  is  not  one  trace  of  morbid,  self-considering, 
envious  or  self-deceiving  feeling.  '  I  cannot  follow,' 
he  might  say,  'or  study  the  great  masters.  The 
careful  rhyme,  regular  movement,  and  stately  com- 
position are  not  for  me  ;  but  I  may  give  pleasure 
by  writing  as  my  nature  impels  me — 

For  me,  thus  nurtured,  dost  thou  ask 
The  classic  poet's  well-conned  task  ? 
Nay,  Erskine,  nay — On  the  wild  hill 
Let  the  wild  heath-bell  flourish  still ; 
Cherish  the  tulip,  prune  the  vine, 
But  freely  let  the  woodbine  twine. 
And  leave  untrimmed  the  eglantine : 
Nay,  my  friend,  nay — Since  oft  thy  praise 
Hath  given  fresh  vigour  to  my  lays ; 
Since  oft  thy  judgment  could  refine 
My  flattened  thought,  or  cumbrous  line ; 
Still  kind,  as  is  thy  wont,  attend. 
And  in  the  minstrel  spare  the  friend. 
Though  wild  as  cloud,  as  stream,  as  gale. 
Flow  forth,  flow  unrestrained,  my  Tale !  ' 

It  is  this  animation,  impulsive  ardour,  a  freedom  as 
of  wild  nature  herself,  this  clear  vision  of  all  he 
loved  outside  of  himself  and  swift  expression  of  it, 
this  delightful  naturalness,  this  joyful  freedom, 
which  charm  us  in  his  poetry. 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  8i 

I  am  not  sure  that  the  vivacity  and  variety  of 
Scott's  poetry  is  not  as  well,  perhaps  better,  repre- 
sented in  the  short  songs,  ballads,  and  minstrel- 
pieces  as  in  the  long  poems.  Like  the  long  poems, 
they  do  not,  save  in  two  or  three  fateful  lyrics,  rise 
into  the  loftier  and  graver  regions  of  poetry,  but,  on 
their  level  and  within  their  sphere,  they  can  express 
with  equal  power  the  splendid  eagerness  of  life 
or  its  melancholy  fates,  or,  indeed,  the  quiet  region 
of  subdued  feeling  which  exists  between  youthful 
ardour  and  tragic  pain.  In  that  quiet  region  there 
is  nothing  better  in  English  lyric  than  County  Guy 
and  The  Sun  upon  the  lake  is  low^  and  the  little  poem 
entitled  The  Weirdlaw  Hill.  They  seem  to  be 
written  by  the  evening  light  itself,  in  its  resigned, 
still,  veiled  atmosphere  ;  encompassed  by  beauty, 
but  by  beauty  which  is  passing  away.  Low  and 
sweet  is  their  music,  and  behind  it,  dimly  felt,  is  the 
inevitable,  the  unknown  trouble  which  is  coming. 

I  am  sure  this  was  a  frequent  mood  of  Scott's 
inner  life.  He  did  not  openly  speak  of  this  deep- 
seated  element  in  his  temperament  which  coexisted, 
as  is  not  uncommon,  with  a  delightful  ardour  and 
joy  in  life,  but  it  haunts  his  poetry.  When  it  is 
vaguely,  slightly  felt,  rising  like  a  thin,  golden,  far- 
off  mist  of  evening,  it  subdues  the  note  of  the  poem, 
as  in  County  Guy,  Where  it  is  more  deeply  felt 
and  brings  with  it  the  dark  menace  of  the  tragedy 
of  life,  it  brings  forth  lyrics  like  Rosabelle. 

Soft  is  the  note  and  sad  the  lay 
That  mourns  the  lovely  Rosabelle. 
F 


82  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

This  is,  of  its  kind,  a  perfect  ballad.  As  full  of 
wild  tragedy  is  Where  shall  the  lover  resty  Clare's 
song  in  Marmion.  The  coronach — He  is  gone  on  the 
mountain — is  by  its  nature  sad,  but  how  excellent  it 
is  ;  everything  in  it  is  right.  The  Maid  of  Neidpath 
reaches  without  an  effort,  with  the  most  natural  ease 
and  simplicity,  a  very  depth  of  sorrow.  These  are 
good,  but  the  dark  jewel  of  them  all  is  Proud  Maisie^ 
where  the  ancient  Fate,  which  slew  the  Greek  who 
was  insolent  to  the  gods  and  natural  law,  slays  the 
proud  maiden,  but  slays  her  not  in  the  Greek,  but 
in  the  full  romantic,  world.  The  snatches  of  song 
Madge  Wildfire  sings  in  the  Heart  of  Midlothian 
are  not  far  from  the  excellence  of  poor  Ophelia's 
singing,  and  the  Ballad  of  the  Harlaw  that  Elspeth 
sings  in  the  Antiquary  is  the  finest  reproduction  of 
the  spirit  of  the  old  ballads  which  exists  in  litera- 
ture. They  breathe  the  wildness  of  wild  sorrow 
and  of  wild  war.  On  the  other  hand,  his  ardent 
daring,  eager  joy,  the  strong  delight  of  his  tempera- 
ment in  open-air  life,  in  the  romance  of  war  and 
hunting,  of  which,  as  he  roamed  the  Border,  his 
imagination  made  him  a  partaker,  filled  another 
.class  of  his  lyrics  with  rushing  music,  and  often 
with  an  outlaw's  passion.  The  martial  brilliance 
and  swiftness  of  Bonny  Dundee^  written,  they  say, 
in  half  an  hour,  cannot  be  bettered.  We  ride 
with  the  horsemen  and  gallop  with  the  verse.  We 
drink  with  the  men,  hear  the  shouting,  and  toss  our 
bonnets  in  the  air.  March^  march,  Ettrick  and  Teviot- 
dale  echoes  the  irregular  march  of  the  men  in  the 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  83 

trampling  of  the  verse.  The  wild  cry  of  the  High- 
land clans,  the  gathering,  the  pipes,  the  lonely  glens 
whence  they  came,  the  mountain  moors  over  which 
they  marched,  are  seen  and  heard,  as  if  they  were 
alive,  in  the  Pibroch  0  Donuil  Dhu  ;  and  the  splendid 
way  in  which  the  ringing  names  are  used  in  the 
verse — an  excellence  which  runs  through  all  the 
poems — gives  it  colour,  resonance,  and  the  full 
voice  of  war.  The  speed  of  the  verse  of  Toung 
Lochinvar  is  not  less  fit  to  the  subject  than  the 
romantic  daring  and  the  gallant  love  which  fill  the 
poem  as  wine  fills  a  cup.  In  the  two  songs  of 
Brignall  Banks  and  A  weary  lot  is  thine^  fair  maid^ 
the  spirit  of  the  outlaw's  life  lives  and  breathes 
through  the  verse.  In  one  its  grim  loneliness,  its 
thought-overladen  conscience,  is  represented  ;  in  the 
other  its  inconstant  thoughtlessness  and  reckless 
freedom.  And  both  are  deepened  by  the  contrast 
of  the  innocent  maidens  whose  youth  sings  uncon- 
sciously, before  the  outlaws,  of  peace  and  happy  days. 
To  create  the  right,  the  fitting  atmosphere,  is  a 
great  excellence,  and  Scott  had  this  rare  power 
when  he  was,  in  his  lyrics,  at  his  best.  We  cannot 
give  a  similar  praise  to  the  greater  number  of  the 
lyrics.  Some  of  them  are  strangely  lifeless,  others 
are  expressed  with  a  curious  artificiality,  some  are 
plainly  invented  for  the  occasion  and  written  with 
too  little  impulse  or  feeling.  There  is  a  pathless 
gulf  between  these  and  the  others  ;  and  it  is  only 
one  proof  the  more  of  the  artist  nature  in  Scott, 
that  when  he  was  not  writing  naturally  and  from 


84  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

a  truly  steadfast,  or  momentary,  emotion,  he  wrote 
poorly. 

Another  element  in  Scott's  poetry  is  a  flitting 
fancy  for  the  supernatural,  which  was  nurtured  in 
him  by  the  wild  legends  of  the  Border.  It  appears 
in  the  great  pleasure  with  which  he  collected  the 
stories  of  the  wild  indwellers  of  the  moor  and  the 
river,  and  the  dark  stories  of  the  mountain  glens 
where  the  pagan  spirits  still  retained  power  over 
those  who  cherished  evil  thought. 

It  appears  in  the  pleasure  he  evidently  took  in 
his  imitations  of  those  German  ballads  which  deal 
with  the  supernatural,  such  as  Burger's  Lenore  and 
Der  Wilde  Jdger^  and  in  the  ballads  he  sent  to 
Lewis's  ^ales  of  Wonder,  They  are  well  done,  but 
he  did  the  same  kind  of  thing  far  better  when  he 
wrote  ballads  on  stories  of  his  native  land.  He  only 
breathed  easily  the  air  of  his  own  country.  There 
is  nothing,  save  in  a  few  old  Border  ballads,  more 
weird,  more  nobly  supernatural,  than  ne  Eve 
of  St.  John  ;  nothing  more  animated  than  Cadyow 
Castle ;  and  Glenfinlas  and  the  Shepherd's  Tale^  while 
less  good,  are  not  unworthy  of  their  legends. 

This  element  was  still  lively  in  his  mind  when  he 
wrote  the  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel.  He  handled  it 
well  enough  in  Deloraine's  ride  and  the  opening  of 
the  tomb  of  Michael  Scott.  But  when  it  comes  to 
the  magic  of  the  Lady  and  to  the  malicious  pranks 
of  the  Goblin  Dwarf,  the  result  is  failure,  and  Scott 
gave  up  the  use  of  supernatural  machinery  till  we 
find  him  trying  it  again  in  Harold  the  Dauntless^  and 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  85 

failing  even  more  completely.  Only  in  the  *Bridal  of 
"Triermain  does  he  treat  a  magical  story  well.  There 
are  quaint  failures  in  this  poem.  The  four  choirs 
of  maidens  in  the  four  halls  of  the  castle  are  a  little 
chilling,  like  an  unrelated  ornament  on  a  well- 
proportioned  building,  and  are  ill-fitted  into  the 
actual  legend  from  another  tale  ;  but  there  is 
humanity  enough  in  the  poem  to  please  and  charm  ; 
and  in  spite  of  adverse  criticism,  I  confess  that  I 
read  it  again  and  again  with  the  sincerest  pleasure. 
Even  the  rococo  treatment  of  the  Arthurian  part  of 
the  subject  gives  me  a  certain  pleasure,  it  is  so 
plainly  what  it  is.  Moreover,  Scott  himself,  in  a 
certain  side-mood  of  his  various  mind,  is  plainly 
to  be  felt  in  the  treatment  of  the  poem  ;  and 
whatever  he  is  or  chooses  to  be,  one  is  always 
in  love  with  him  when  he  is  writing  of  what  he 
loves. 

It  is  because  he  did  not  care  much  for  what  he 
was  writing  that  "The  Lord  of  the  Isles  is  so  inferior 
to  Tihe  Lady  of  the  Lake  and  its  predecessors.  He 
wrote  it,  as  he  said,  to  make  money  ;  he  was  quite 
bored  by  it ;  and  he  was  writing  Rokeby^  Waverley^ 
Guy  Manneringy  and  a  Life  of  Swift  in  the  same 
year.  It  is  scratchy,  uninspired,  and  with  a  few 
exceptions,  such  as  genius  is  sure  to  make,  lifeless 
labour.  His  poetic  vein  was  now  worked  out  save 
for  a  few  lyrics,  and  then  he  found  himself  in  prose 
as  he  never  had  found  himself  in  poetry.  Few 
men,  having  exhausted  one  rich  vein  in  their  nature, 
find   another   richer  still,  and  have  the  power  to 


86  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

work  It.    But  this  man  was  inexhaustible,  a  splendid 
gift  of  God  to  men. 

The  fame  of  Scott  as  a  narrative  poet  rests  on 
the  three  poems  which  preceded  Rokeby,  The  Lay 
of  the  Last  Minstrel  is  almost  formless.  It  began  as 
a  ballad,  and  it  never  quite  loses  the  spirit  of  the 
ballad.  It  is  most  like  a  congeries  of  ballads  worked 
together  into  a  continuous  poem.  But  it  makes  up 
for  this  by  its  extraordinary  vigour  and  by  its 
romantic  enchantment.  It  blew  across  the  dull  mist 
of  England's  materialism  like  a  wind  from  the 
northern  sea,  and  dispersed  it  for  a  time.  It  made 
men  and  women  believe  again  in  magic,  and  dwarfs, 
and  the  spirits  of  flood  and  fell,  and  romance  ;  and 
above  all  in  life  lived  frankly,  boldly,  on  the  edge 
of  danger  and  delight — individual  life,  careless  of 
wealth  and  comfort  and  death,  careful  only  for 
honour  and  loyalty  and  love.  The  romantic  past 
opened  its  gates,  and  the  unromantic  folk  walked 
in,  and  were  amazed  to  find  themselves  happy  in 
the  air  of  that  strange  country.  The  life  of  the 
Border,  its  wars,  passions,  temper,  and  faiths,  grew 
into  a  seeming  reality.  It  was  curious  and  pleasant 
to  read  of  the  strife  between  the  Scotts  and  the 
Beattisons  for  Eskdale,  told  as  if  by  one  who  was 
present  at  the  foray  and  the  battle.  Every  one  who 
read  of  the  ride  of  Deloraine  rode  with  him  through 
the  night  and  saw  the  light  from  the  tomb  of 
Michael  Scott  break  gloriously  up  to  the  chancel 
roof  of  Melrose,  and  felt  the  spear  of  Cranstoun 
pierce  his  breast.    Every  one  saw  with  his  own  eyes 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  87 

the  English  host  gather  round  Branksome  Tower, 
and  heard  the  Border  slogan  summon  the  clans. 
The  poem  Is  alive  with  war  from  end  to  end,  and 
the  life  of  free  war  entered  into  the  hearts  of  its 
readers.  And  through  it  all,  and  making  its  charm, 
the  spirit  of  Scott  himself  ran  to  and  fro  in  delight, 
over  the  moors  and  rivers,  the  abbeys  and  castles,  the 
gatherings,  the  camps,  the  tourneys,  and  the  warlike 
feasts  he  loved  so  well. 

Marmion^  published  in  1808,  three  years  after  the 
Lay^  was,  unlike  it,  conceived  as  a  whole,  and  as 
carefully  composed  and  shaped  as  Scott  could  manage. 
The  characters  illustrate  one  another  fairly,  but  in 
themselves  are  not  interesting.  The  incidents  are 
no  longer  haphazard,  and  enliven  or  advance  the 
tale  ;  the  hero's  fictitious  character  is  linked  to  a 
great  historical  event ;  there  is  plenty  of  variety  and 
picturesque  drawing,  and  the  sequence  and  shape  of 
the  story  are  clear  enough  to  satisfy  the  reader.  It 
is  true  they  might  be  clearer,  and  the  work  is  often 
careless  with  the  natural  carelessness  of  Scott.  The 
form  of  the  poem  is  not  then  of  the  best,  but  the 
spirit  of  it  is  irresistible.  Life  runs  through  it  like 
a  river  ;  and  when  we  are  in  touch  with  its  stirring 
life,  we  think  but  little  of  its  defective  form.  Its 
great  mistake  is  that  the  main  character  is  a  traitor 
to  love  and  to  honour  for  the  sake  of  wealth — a 
forger  and  a  betrayer  ;  and  though  Scott  tried  hard 
to  balance  these  sins  by  painting  his  bravery,  his 
power  to  lead,  his  audacious  pride,  he  could  not 
save  him  for  romance.     He  died  like  a  hero,  but 


88  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

Douglas  would  not  take  his  hand.  This  subtly 
taints  the  poem.  His  enemy  Wilton  is  a  mere 
ghost  of  a  character.  He  does  not  count.  The 
rest  is  excellent.  There  are  few  descriptions  of 
nature,  and  none  of  her,  as  afterwards,  for  her  own 
sake  ;  but  she  is  described  as  mingling  her  beauty 
with  the  works  of  man,  with  castle  and  convent, 
palace  and  camp.  Such  descriptions  are  of  a  delight- 
ful vividness,  colour,  detail,  and  sentiment.  They 
change  their  atmosphere  in  accordance  with  their 
subject.  The  opening  description  of  Norham  in 
the  sunset,  and  of  Marmion's  approach  ;  that  of  the 
sea-voyage  from  Whitby  to  Lindisfarne  ;  of  the 
camp,  of  the  war  array  of  Scots  and  English  by  the 
Till  before  the  battle  closed  thick  and  bloody  on 
Flodden  Field,  are  full  of  the  brightest  light,  of 
fresh  air  and  of  vivid  movement.  We  not  only 
see  the  scene,  we  hear  the  dashing  of  the  waves, 
and  the  horse  hoofs  on  the  bridge  at  Norham,  and 
the  trumpet's  sounding,  the  soldiers'  shouting  in  the 
camp,  and  the  clash  of  battle.  This  is  an  excellent 
power  in  a  poet — the  craft  of  presentation.  It  was 
as  good  in  the  description  of  men,  but  on  that  I 
shall  dwell  in  another  part  of  this  essay. 

Marmion  was  followed  by  The  Lady  of  the  Lake^ 
which,  though  I  love  the  Lay  the  most,  is  the  best 
composed,  the  most  inventive,  and  most  pleasing  of 
the  poems.  It  moves  with  ease  from  start  to  finish 
in  a  flowing  narrative.  The  events  follow  without 
a  jar  from  one  to  another  and  are  naturally  linked 
together.      They  take  place   in  a  narrow  belt  of 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  89 

country  and  within  a  short  time.  The  story  is 
slight,  but  it  is  romantic  throughout,  and  though 
some  of  the  characters  are  historical,  the  poem  is 
not  worried  by  history. 

Then  it  is  pure  invention  from  beginning  to  end 
— a  little  romantic  adventure,  pushed  into  historical 
times  out  of  the  world  of  the  Chansons  de  Geste — a 
hunting,  the  hunter  lost  in  an  unknown  country,  a 
solitary  island  and  a  mountain  maiden  of  a  great 
house,  her  lovers  and  her  bard — I  need  not  follow 
the  rest  of  the  story.  It  is  honest,  clear  invention, 
healthy  expression  of  the  outward  world,  and  none 
of  those  subjective  feelings  which  have  no  reproduc- 
tive power  injure  its  reality.  The  story  is  not  one 
of  the  great  stories,  nor  does  it  deal  with  the  move- 
ments of  the  greater  passions,  nor  is  its  action  of 
high  moment.  Its  level  is  only  half-way  up  Par- 
nassus. But  it  was  a  level  on  which  Scott  as  a 
poet  moved  with  a  comfortable,  productive  pleasure, 
with  facile  execution.  He  had  the  liveliest  feeling 
of  the  situations  he  created,  and  the  power  to  express 
them  happily.  Then,  too,  the  scenery  in  which 
he  placed  his  story  was  that  of  his  native  land,  and 
his  love  of  Scotland  is  like  a  spirit  of  life  in  the 
poem.  It  is  not  brought  into  the  same  prominence 
as  it  is  in  Marmion  or  in  the  Lay^  but  it  pervades 
the  poem.  Moreover  the  scenery  is  quite  new,  and 
the  description  of  it  awoke  the  greatest  interest  and 
excitement  in  its  readers.  Scott  discovered  the 
Trosachs  and  opened  the  Highlands  to  the  pleasure 
of  mankind  in  The  Lady  of  the  Lake.     It  was  not 


90  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

only  the  romantic  tale,  but  also  the  revelation  of  an 
unknown  world  of  wild  beauty,  which  again  sent  a 
freshening  wind  into  a  dull  society. 

The  characters  in  the  poem  are  not  worth  much. 
The  tale  is  more  than  the  personages  and  absorbs 
them  too  much.  None  of  them  are  as  clearly 
defined  and  painted  as  the  men  in  Marmion^  but 
Ellen  is  more  of  a  reality  than  Clare.  Indeed,  it  is 
strange  that  he  who  in  his  novels  drew  characters  so 
variously,  so  vitally,  should  in  his  poems  draw  them 
so  weakly,  and  with  so  little  variety.  Their  outward 
presentment,  their  dress,  their  air,  all  that  the  eye 
sees,  is  done  with  a  splendid  pencil,  but  what  they 
were  within  is  vague.  The  shell  is  there,  but  not 
the  kernel.  Scott  felt  this  himself,  and  in  Rokeby 
he  deliberately  set  himself  to  make  the  portraiture 
of  character  the  chief  feature  of  the  poem.  He 
succeeded  in  this  effort  as  ill  in  Rokeby  as  he  succeeded 
in  it  magnificently  in  his  novels.  The  characters  of 
the  poem  are  over-moralised,  somewhat  lifeless,  and 
assuredly  dull.  They  do  not  fit  the  time  of  the 
puritans  and  cavaliers  in  which  Scott  placed  them  ; 
that  is,  they  have  no  historical  value.  Their  poetic 
value  is  not  great  enough  to  make  one  careless  as 
to  whether  they  are  representative  of  the  time  in 
which  they  are  placed.  The  natural  descriptions, 
while  accurate,  are  without  freshness  or  inspira- 
tion. The  moral  tags  with  which  they  often 
end  are  distressing,  and  the  preachments  and  the 
far  -  fetched  illustrations  that  deviate  so  widely 
from   the    subject   irritate  the  reader   as  much   as 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  91 

the  general  dulness  of  the  story.      The  lyrics  are 
dragged  in. 

On  the  whole,  the  quick  pulse  of  life  which  runs 
through  the  previous  poems,  their  fresh  air  and 
light,  their  dance  of  feeling  and  of  metre,  their 
swift  incidents  and  vivid  descriptions,  are  gone  in 
Rokeby.  No  natural  impulse  starts  it  or  goes  with 
it.  It  was  done  with  the  purpose  of  paying  for  his 
house  and  plantations.  The  purpose  necessarily 
injured  the  poetry  and  curdled  his  imagination.  He 
elaborated  its  preparation,  studied  the  natural 
scenery  of  it  with  so  much  care  as  to  lose  his  first 
fresh  impressions,  and,  most  unfortunately,  left  in  it 
his  native  land.  These  things  took  from  the  poem 
that  vivacity,  speed,  and  creative  joy  which  had  in 
its  predecessors  enchanted  a  sleepy  public.  I  have 
often  thought  as  I  read  them  of  young  Lochinvar's 
ride. 

She  is  won !  we  are  gone,  over  bank,  bush,  and  scaur, 

They  '11  have  fleet  steeds  that  follow,  quoth  young  Lochinvar. 

Nothing  of  that  spirit  is  in  Rokeby. 

Lastly,  we  have  no  poetry  of  reflection  in  Scott. 
He  was  not  even  reflective  of  himself.  There  is  no 
personal  analysis  of  his  soul,  his  moods,  his  woes,  or 
his  mental  diseases.  We  never  see  or  smell  the 
lazar-house.  The  poems  are  full  of  the  spirit  of 
Scott,  but  not  of  descriptions  of  himself.  They  are 
as  impersonal,  save  in  one  or  two  instances,  as 
nature  herself.  Even  in  the  introductions  to  the 
several   cantos  of  Marmton^  where  he  does  speak 


92  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

of  himself,  it  is  such  self-speaking  as  may  occur  in 
letters  to  friends,  which  these  introductions  purport 
to  be.  They  are  not  self-revelation  so  much  as 
recalling  to  his  friend  the  happy  memories  of  their 
youthful  past.  The  rarity  of  such  personal  memories 
is  one  of  the  charms  of  these  poems.  We  may 
wish  for  more  of  this  personal  element,  but,  on  the 
whole,  his  impersonality  in  poetry  is  too  great  a 
blessing  to  be  lost  in  a  world  which  is  so  over- 
whelmingly personal  in  poetry.  When  we  are  weary 
of  philosophy  in  verse,  of  representations  of  ex- 
hausted moods,  of  the  weariness  of  life  in  men  who 
imagine  they  have  lived,  of  what  some  poets  call 
truth  and  is  disease,  of  sordid  society  embodied  in 
flamboyant  verse,  of  jangled  rhymes  for  the  sake 
of  clever  rhyme,  of  strange  rhythms,  of  word- 
painting  as  if  sound  and  pattern  of  words  were 
poetry,  it  is  a  great  comfort  to  turn  to  Walter 
Scott  and  find  oneself  in  a  world  of  poetry  where 
the  verse  is  simple,  straightforward,  clear,  sweet, 
and  abiding  in  romance.  I  am  sorry  for  those 
who  cannot  share  in  this  consolation. 


Ill 

In  the  first  part  of  this  essay  I  have  tried  to  show 
how  the  poetry  of  Scott  was  related  to  the  ideas  of 
the  Revolution.  In  this  last  part  I  should  like,  if 
possible,  to  explain  how  it  is  related  to  the  previous 
Scottish  poetry.     In  doing  this  certain  elements  of 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  93 

his   poetry  will  appear   on  which  I    have  not  yet 
touched. 

There  is  a  distinct  race  difference  in  the  poetry 
written  in  the  English  tongue  by  men  inhabiting 
the  Lowlands  of  Scotland  from  that  written  in 
England  itself ;  and  the  difference  consists  in  this — 
that  in  the  Lowlands  Celtic  blood  was  equally 
mixed  with  English  blood,  whereas  over  a  great 
part  of  England  such  an  admixture  was  very 
unequal.  It  is  true  that  in  Devonshire,  and  along 
the  borders  of  our  Wales,  the  Welsh  mingled  with 
the  English,  but,  even  there,  not  to  the  same  extent 
as  in  the  Lowlands.  In  our  Yorkshire  and  our 
Northumberland  there  was  also  a  Celtic  admixture, 
but  again,  not  to  a  similar  extent  with  the  Low- 
lands. On  the  south  of  the  Border  the  Teutonic 
element  finally  predominated,  and  absorbed,  almost 
altogether,  the  Celtic.  But  on  the  north  of  the 
Border,  in  the  Lowlands,  it  was  quite  a  different 
story.  The  western  half  of  the  Lowlands — part  of 
the  kingdom  of  Strathclyde  which  was  unconquered 
by  the  English — was  entirely  Celtic,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Galloway.  The  eastern  half — part  of  the 
old  kingdom  of  Northumbria — from  the  Border  to 
the  river  Forth  was  English.  After  a  time  the  Scot 
kings  of  the  west  overran  the  eastern  Lowlands,  and 
reduced  the  English  inhabitants  under  their  sway. 
They  did  not  slaughter  or  enslave  the  English,  but 
amalgamated  them  with  their  own  subjects.  The 
two  races,  then,  mingled  on  an  equality  over  all  the 
Lowlands,   intermarried   easily,   and   their   various 


94  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

race  qualities  were  combined  for  centuries.  This 
mingling  of  race  has  influenced  all  Lowland  Scottish 
history  and  all  Lowland  Scottish  poetry,  that  is, 
poetry  written  south  of  the  Forth  and  Clyde  in  the 
English  tongue.  We  have,  then,  to  remember  that 
in  this  space  of  land  between  the  Border  and  the 
two  rivers  of  the  Clyde  and  the  Forth  there  was 
a  condition  of  things  which  existed  nowhere  else 
in  Britain.  In  England  the  direct  Celtic  influence 
disappears  from  literature.  Indirectly,  through  the 
Normans,  it  had  a  great  influence  in  the  story  of 
Arthur.  But  it  was  not  direct ;  it  came  clothed 
not  in  Celtic  garments,  but  in  the  trappings  of 
French  romance.  In  the  Lowlands,  where  the  Celt 
and  the  Teuton  were  for  centuries  harmoniously 
mixed  together,  certain  Celtic  elements,  long  un- 
touched by  French  romance,  acted  directly  on 
literature  when  it  began  north  of  the  Border, 
and  coloured  the  English  poetry  written  in  the 
Lowlands  from  its  origin  right  down  to  the  present 
day.  In  Chaucer,  these  elements  derived  from  the 
Celtic  race  have  completely  disappeared.  In  James 
the  First  of  Scotland  they  clearly  exist,  even  though 
he  was  an  imitator  of  Chaucer.  In  the  Lowland 
poets,  though  Chaucer's  influence  was  also  great 
with  them,  they  continue  to  exist.  In  Henderson, 
in  Dunbar,  in  Gawain  Douglas,  in  Fergusson,  and 
in  Burns,  they  are  prominent.  They  are  just  as 
strongly  marked  in  Walter  Scott. 

The  first  of  these  Celtic  elements  is  the  love  of 
nature  for  its  own  sake.     In  the  early  poems  of 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  95 

Ireland,  in  the  Gaelic  poems  of  Scotland  and  in  those 
of  Wales,  there  is  a  close,  imaginative,  emotional  ob- 
servation and  description  of  natural  beauty,  especially 
of  wild  nature,  which  is  also  found  in  the  English 
poetry  of  the  Lowlands,  but  not  in  English  poetry 
proper  till  the  nineteenth  century.  The  poet  loves 
to  be  alone  with  nature  without  even  his  sweetheart. 
Quite  content  with  the  beauty  and  joy  he  feels,  he 
is  ravished  into  description,  not  of  his  own  feelings, 
but  of  the  things  before  his  eyes.  They  are  enough, 
and  if  he  can  describe  them  well,  others  will  be 
lured  to  the  same  solitude  with  nature  and  into 
the  same  delight.  But  we  may  say — This  also 
is  to  be  found  in  English  poetry  !  Yes,  but  in 
English  poetry  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The 
point  is  that  it  can  scarcely  be  said  to  exist  in  the 
Early  English  poetry  after  the  Conquest,^  and  that 
at  the  time,  for  example,  of  Henry  vii.  and  Henry 
VIII.,  when  there  was  not  a  trace  in  England  of  it, 
it  was  in  full  flower  in  Scotland. 

In  Chaucer's  time  there  was  no  description  of 
wild  nature,  of  mountain  or  forest  country,  no 
love  of  it.  On  the  contrary,  Chaucer  would 
have  been  exceedingly  put  out,  even  terrified,  if 
he  found  himself  among  mountains  or  in  a  savage 
moorland.  What  he  loved  was  a  trim  garden 
with  beds  of  roses  and  pebbled  pathways,  or  a  wood 

1  An  exception  may  be  made  in  the  case  of  Layamon's  Brut,  and  the 
Grene  Knight,  where  some  fine  natural  description  may  be  found  j  but 
Layamon,  on  the  border  of  Wales,  was  closely  subject  to  Celtic  influence, 
and  so  was  the  writer  of  the  Grene  Knight^  who  belonged  to  Lancashire. 


96  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

where  the  trees  were  planted  at  proper  distances 
among  shaven  grass.  His  landscape  was,  on  the 
whole,  the  conventional  French  landscape,  and  this 
was  the  only  kind  of  nature  English  poets  cared 
for  up  to  the  time  of  Elizabeth.  But  in  Scotland 
it  was  quite  different.  Even  in  the  Kings  ^air — 
the  work  of  James  i. — though  the  poem  imitates 
Chaucer,  the  landscape  has  touches  of  wildness  and 
is  loved  for  its  own  sake  ;  and  in  the  later  poets — 
Henderson,  Douglas,  Dunbar — the  whole  scenery 
of  spring,  of  summer,  of  winter,  the  woodland,  the 
rushing  brooks,  the  wild  rocks,  the  mountain  glens, 
the  wind  among  them  in  its  storm,  the  aspects  of 
the  sky — are  described  with  an  accuracy,  a  study,  a 
minute  love  which  at  their  time  was  unknown,  nay, 
was  impossible  in  England  ;  and  which,  in  its  full- 
ness, though  it  began  with  James  Thomson  who 
brought  it  from  Scotland,  we  do  not  find  in  English 
poetry,  in  its  absolute  ignoring  of  humanity,  until 
two  hundred  years  after,  till  Wordsworth  began 
to  write.  There  is,  of  course,  fine  natural  descrip- 
tion in  the  Elizabethan  poetry  down  to  Milton  ;  in 
Herrick  and  his  comrades,  in  Gray  and  Collins,  but 
it  is  not  a  poetry  for  the  sake  of  nature  alone ;  it  is 
of  nature  as  a  background  for  humanity,  as  a  mirror 
reflecting  human  feeling,  an  image  or  illustration  of 
human  life.  But  in  the  Lowland  poetry,  as  it  fre- 
quently is  in  Wordsworth  and  our  own  poets,  it  is 
of  nature  alone  for  her  own  sake,  apart  from  men. 

This  is  the   strange   thing  we  have  to  account 
for,  and  I  hold  that  it  is  due  to  the  long,  unbroken 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  97 

admixture  of  Celtic  blood  in  the  Lowland  people. 
Moreover,  the  description  is  of  a  particular  kind. 
What  is  seen  and  recorded  is  seen  in  itself  as  it 
is.  The  exact  scene  is  so  closely  given  that  it  reads 
too  much  like  a  catalogue.  It  wants  the  spiritual 
element  of  the  universal  Divine  that  Wordsworth 
or  Coleridge  would  have  added  to  it.  The  descrip- 
tions by  Gawain  Douglas  of  summer  and  winter 
landscape  are  minute  and  loving,  but  they  do  not 
introduce  man,  they  are  of  nature  for  her  own  sake>y 
They  might  have  been  written  by  James  Thomson, 
and  yet  their  date  is  at  the  beginning  of  the  six- 
teenth century. 

This  is  the  kind  of  description  of  nature  which 
we  find  in  Walter  Scott.  His  descriptions  are  close 
to  the  general  aspect  of  the  scene,  accurate  as  far  as 
they  go,  even  minute.  Humanity  does  not  intrude 
upon  them.  They  have  no  spiritual  element.  They 
are  clear  statements  of  natural  fact.  That  which 
makes  them  delightful  is  that  their  lucid  vision  of 
the  beautiful  things  the  poet  has  the  heart  to  sec 
reveals  his  love  of  them,  and  of  the  wild  loneliness 
in  which  they  live.  But  this  natural,  unmeditative 
love  is  all.  Nature  to  him  is  not,  apart  from 
her  forms,  in  any  sense  alive.  A  cloud  is  a 
cloud,  a  stream  a  stream,  a  rock  a  rock.  They 
have  no  soul,  no  voice,  no  consciousness  of  joy,  as 
they  would  have  to  Wordsworth.  If  he  speak  of 
sorrow,  or  peace,  or  pleasure  in  connection  with 
these  natural  objects,  the  sorrow,  peace,  and  pleasure 
are  his  own,  he  never  thinks  that  nature  has  brought 

G 


98  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

them  to  him  or  that  nature  shares  in  them.  He 
always  feels  himself  distinct  from  nature.  In  this 
apartness,  in  this  love  of  nature  without  the  sense  of 
any  vital  kinship  with  her,  he  stands  alone  among 
the  poets  of  the  nineteenth  century  ;  but  he  is  not 
alone  in  Scotland.  This  is  the  way  nature  is  re- 
garded by  the  Lowland  poets  from  the  sixteenth 
century  down  to  Burns.  Scott  does  not  differ  from 
the  rest.  In  his  admiration,  in  his  description  of 
nature,  and  in  the  manner  of  it  he  was  the  child  of 
a  long  ancestry. 

Nor  is  there  any  moralising  of  nature.  Scott 
could  not  have  made,  like  Wordsworth,  the  daisy 
image  the  loveliness  of  humility  and  unself-con- 
sciousness,  nor  could  he  have  flung  a  garland  of 
fifty  human  fancies  round  the  flower.  He  could 
not,  like  Wordsworth,  have  filled  the  grove  of  yews 
at  Borrowdale  with  the  tragic  powers  of  human  life, 
with  mighty  primaeval  forms  like  Time  the  Skeleton 
and  Death  the  Shadow,  and  made  them  recline  in 
the  deep  umbrage  and  listen  to  the  mountain  flood. 
He  would  only  have  said  that  the  daisy  was  yellow 
and  white,  and  shone  like  a  star  in  the  grass.  He 
would  only  have  said  the  yews  were  dismal  and 
swarthy,  and  that  no  flowers  grew  in  their  baleful 
shade.^     It  is  possible  to  feel  that  such  direct  de- 

1  But  here,  'twixt  rock  and  river,  grew 

A  dismal  grove  of  sable  yew. 
With  whose  sad  tints  were  mingled  seen 
The  blighted  fir's  sepulchral  green. 
Seemed  that  the  trees  their  shadows  cast, 
The  earth  that  nourished  them  to  blast  j 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  99 

scription  is  nearest  to  nature,  and  is  the  healthiest 
way  to  look  at  her,  but  it  does  not  suit  us  so  well 
as  that  of  Wordsworth  or  Shelley  ;  because,  being 
troubled  or  pleased  by  philosophy  or  self-commun- 
ing when  we  live  with  nature,  we  want  the  poets  to 
sympathise  with  us.  Scott  will  not  do  this.  The 
only  thing  he  does  is  at  the  end  of  his  description 
to  tag  on  a  moral  or  fanciful  touch,  like  a  piece  of 
gold  lace  on  a  garment  without  which  the  garment 
would  look  all  the  better.     Here  is  one  : 

Foxglove  and  nightshade  side  by  side, 
Emblems  of  punishment  and  pride. 

Here  is  another : 

Who  loves  not  more  the  night  of  June 
Than  dull  December's  gloomy  noon  ? 
The  moonlight  than  the  fog  of  frost  ? 
And  can  we  say,  which  cheats  the  most  ? 

This  is  pure  commonplace. 

The  conventionality  of  these  moralities  extended 
itself  to  his  descriptions  of  nature.  He  uses  a 
number  of  unimpassioned  phrases,  of  careless  adjec- 
tives. It  seems  sometimes  as  if  anything  would  do. 
This  habit  grew  upon  him,  and  is  more  marked  in 

For  never  knew  that  swarthy  grove 
The  verdant  hue  that  fairies  love  ; 
Nor  wilding  green,  nor  woodland  flower. 
Arose  within  its  baleful  bower  j 
The  dank  and  sable  earth  receives 
Its  only  carpet  from  the  leaves, 
That,  from  the  withering  branches  cast, 
Bestrewed  the  ground  with  every  blast. 


100  STUDIES  IN  POETRY. 

Rokeby  than  in  any  other  of  the  poems.  I  even 
think  that  his  love  of  nature  itself  was  afFected  by 
this  artificial  phrasing,  and  that  his  early  passion  for 
her  beauty  did  not  return  until  he  wrote  of  nature 
in  his  novels.  It  is  in  the  early  poems,  and  when 
he  writes  of  how  he  felt  in  youth,  that  the  conven- 
tional note  is  not  heard,  that  his  verse  reflects  the 
natural  joy  of  his  soul  in  the  beauty  of  the  world. 
We  lie  with  him  and  his  friend  on  the  hillside  and 
hear  his  heart  beat. 

The  laverock  whistled  from  the  cloud, 
The  stream  was  lively,  but  not  loud. 
From  the  white  thorn  the  May-flower  shed 
Its  dewy  fragrance  round  our  head. 
Not  Ariel  lived  more  merrily 
Under  the  blossomed  bough  than  we. 

But  even  then  it  needed  to  make  him  perfectly 
happy  that  he  should  have  a  memory  of  some  far-oflF 
day,  a  touch  of  chivalric  romance  to  add  to  nature. 
It  was  love  of  her,  no  doubt,  but  it  was  not  love  of 
her  alone.  He  felt  the  Celtic  influence,  but  not 
alone. 

Another  Celtic  element  in  his  poetry  was  his  love 
of  colour.  I  need  scarcely  dwell  on  that,  for  Ruskin 
has  drawn  full  attention  to  it.  He  quotes,  in  proof 
of  his  opinion,  the  fine  description  of  Edinburgh  in 
Marmion  beginning 

Still  on  the  spot  Lord  Marmion  stayed, 

in  which  the  whole  scene  is  painted  in   accordant 
colours.     And  he  gives  many  more  examples.    This 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  loi 

special  love  of  colour  is  keen  in  the  Celtic  race. 
In  all  Irish  and  Welsh  poems,  many  of  which  were 
composed  long  before  the  English  had  emerged 
from  the  Saxon  forests,  there  is  an  extraordinary  love 
of  colour.  The  landscape  is  described  in  its  hues 
rather  than  in  its  outlines.  The  birds,  the  insects, 
the  animals,  are  chiefly  drawn  in  colour.  Minute 
and  delicate  shades  of  colour  are  determined,  even 
to  the  different  tints  of  a  mountain  when  the  wind 
is  passing  over  it,  or  of  the  sea  when  the  tide  is 
coming  in.  The  heroes  who  fight  or  march  are 
always  in  a  blaze  of  colour  ;  and  every  part  of  their 
dress  is  described  by  its  colour  more  than  by  its 
stuff.  As  we  read,  the  page  flashes  before  our  eyes. 
The  colour  is  often  intemperately  used,  but  even 
in  its  intemperate  use  we  feel  how  much  it  was  loved 
by  the  writer. 

This  rich,  plenteous  colour  is  rarely  to  be  found 
in  the  proper  English  poets  after  Chaucer  up  to 
this  century.  But  in  the  Lowland  poetry  of  Scot- 
land the  love  of  it  is  very  great.  Men  like  Dunbar, 
Douglas,  even  Lyndsay,  —  and  I  only  name  the 
foremost, — in  describing  nature  and  men,  describe 
them  like  the  Celts  with  a  profusion  of  colour.  At 
a  time  when,  in  Surrey,  Wyatt,  or  later  in  Spenser 
and  Shakespeare,  colour  is  rarely  dwelt  on,  the 
pages  of  the  Scottish  poets  are  like  an  heraldic 
shield,  like  nature  herself  in  Italy,  and  not  in  the 
cold  north. 

This  is  the  Celtic  colour  passing  down  in  the 
Lowlands  through  the  centuries,  and  living  again 


102  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

in  Scott.  It  is  as  fully  shown  in  his  description  of 
the  personal  appearance  of  men  as  Ruskin  found  it 
in  his  description  of  nature.  Here  is  the  description 
of  Marmion  : 

Well  was  he  armed  from  head  to  heel, 

In  mail  and  plate  of  Milan  steel ; 

But  his  strong  helm,  of  mighty  cost, 

Was  all  with  burnished  gold  embossed ; 

Amid  the  plumage  of  the  crest, 

A  falcon  hovered  on  her  nest. 

With  wings  outspread,  and  forward  breast ; 

E'en  such  a  falcon,  on  his  shield. 

Soared  sable  in  an  azure  field  : 

The  golden  legend  bore  aright, 

<  Who  checks  at  me,  to  death  is  dight.' 

Blue  was  the  charger's  broidered  rein  ; 

Blue  ribbons  decked  his  arching  mane ; 

The  knightly  housing's  ample  fold 

Was  velvet  blue,  and  trapped  with  gold. 

The  Other  Celtic  element,  the  third  which  came 
down  to  the  Lowland  poets,  and  does  not  appear  in 
the  same  kind  in  English  poetry,  is  a  certain 
abusive,  roaring,  exaggerated  wit — well  represented 
in  Dunbar — indulged  in  with  often  as  much  intem- 
perance as  colour  was  indulged  in,  but  frequently- 
used  with  as  much  excellence — especially  by  Burns 
— as  the  poets  used  colour.  This  element  we  do  not 
find  in  the  poetry  of  Scott,  but  we  do  find,  here 
and  there,  the  other  side  of  it,  that  into  which  the 
rollicking  laughter  of  the  Celt  glides  at  a  touch — 
pathetic  passionateness.  And  of  this  there  are  two 
forms,  the  pathos  of  extreme  tenderness  for  quiet 
sorrow,  and  the  greater  pathos  which  comes  from 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  103 

feeling  at  rare  moments  the  sense  of  the  weird 
which  overhangs  the  world,  which  especially  over- 
shadows— as  in  Greek  tragedy — the  pridefulness  of 
youth  forgetful  of  the  gods. 

Of  the  first  in  Scott  there  is  no  better  example 
than  the  Maid  of  Neidpath  : 

O  lovers'  eyes  are  sharp  to  see, 

And  lovers'  ears  in  hearing ; 
And  love,  in  life's  extremity, 

Can  lend  an  hour  of  cheering. 
Disease  had  been  in  Mary's  bower. 

And  slow  decay  from  mourning. 
Though  now  she  sits  on  Neidpath's  tower 

To  watch  her  love's  returning. 

All  sunk  and  dim  her  eyes  so  bright. 

Her  form  decayed  by  pining, 
Till  through  her  wasted  hand,  at  night, 

You  saw  the  taper  shining; 
By  fits  a  sultry  hectic  hue 

Across  her  cheek  was  flying ; 
By  fits,  so  ashy  pale  she  grew, 

Her  maidens  thought  her  dying. 

Yet  keenest  powers  to  see  and  hear 

Seemed  in  her  frame  residing ; 
Before  the  watchdog  prick'd  his  ear 

She  heard  her  lover's  riding ; 
Ere  scarce  a  distant  form  was  ken'd. 

She  knew,  and  waved  to  greet  him ; 
And  o'er  the  battlement  did  bend. 

As  on  the  wing  to  meet  him. 

He  came — he  pass'd — an  heedless  gaze, 

As  o'er  some  stranger  glancing ; 
Her  welcome,  spoke  in  faltering  phrase, 

Lost  in  his  courser's  prancing — 


104  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

The  castle  arch,  whose  hollow  tone 

Returns  each  whisper  spoken, 
Could  scarcely  catch  the  feeble  moan, 

Which  told  her  heart  was  broken. 

Of  the  second  there  Is  none  finer  anywhere,  in  a 
lyrical  form,  than  the  little  half-ballad,  half-lyric,  of 
Proud  Maisie  : 

Proud  Maisie  is  in  the  wood, 

Walking  so  early ; 
Sweet  Robin  sits  on  the  bush. 

Singing  so  rarely. 

<  Tell  me,  thou  bonny  bird. 

When  shall  I  marry  me  ?  * — 

*  When  six  braw  gentlemen 

Kirkward  shall  carry  ye.* 

<  Who  makes  the  bridal  bed, 

Birdie,  say  truly  I ' 

*  The  grey-headed  sexton 

That  delves  the  grave  duly. 

'  The  glow-worm  o'er  grave  and  stone 

Shall  light  thee  steady  ; 
The  owl  from  the  steeple  sing, 

'*  Welcome,  proud  lady."  ' 

That  has  the  highest  excellence,  and  another  short 
song  in  the  same  novel — the  Heart  of  Midlothian — 
approaches  its  tragic  music,  *  Cauld  is  my  bed,  Lord 
Archibald  ! '  In  a  different  form,  but  grim  with 
his  transient,  but  not  unfrequent,  view  of  life,  is  the 
little  song  in  the  most  fateful  of  all  Scott's  stories, 
the  Bride  of  La?nmermoor.  '  Look  not  thou  on 
beauty's  charming,'  it  begins,  '  do  nothing  in  the 
whole  world  which  will  bring  the  Qnwy  of  the  gods 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  105 

upon  you,  if  you  would  live  at  ease  and  die  in 
peace.' 

Look  not  thou  on  beauty's  charming, — 
Sit  thou  still  when  kings  are  arming, — 
Taste  not  when  the  wine-cup  glistens, — 
Speak  not  when  the  people  listens, — 
Stop  thine  ear  against  the  singer, — 
From  the  red  gold  keep  thy  finger, — 
Vacant  heart,  and  hand,  and  eye. 
Easy  live  and  quiet  die. 

But  to  live  at  ease  and  die  in  peace  was  not  Scott's 
desire.  His  mounting  spirit  scorned  fameless,  in- 
dolent, and  luxurious  days.  All  his  poetry  rings 
with  martial  endeavour,  constancy  in  pursuit  of  lofty 
ends,  contempt  of  apathy,  love  of  romance. 

Sound,  sound  the  clarion,  fill  the  fife  1 

To  all  the  sensual  world  proclaim, 
One  crowded  hour  of  glorious  life 

Is  worth  an  age  without  a  name. 

So  much  for  the  Celtic  elements,  and  their  ap- 
pearance in  the  poetry  of  Scott. 

There  were,  moreover,  two  other  elements,  which 
arose  out  of  the  history  of  Scotland,  in  the  Lowland 
poetry.  The  first  of  these  is  the  love  of  distinct 
individualities,  the  pleasure  the  poets  had  in  men 
who  lived  their  own  free  independent  life,  and  fought 
for  their  own  hand.  It  was  a  love  which  gave  them 
a  great  power  of  drawing  distinct  types  of  men. 
The  second  is  the  intense  and  assertive  nationality 
of  the  poets.  Both  these,  after  a  career  of  four 
centuries,  are  vital  in  the  poems  of  Walter  Scott,  and 
connect  him  historically  with  all  his  predecessors. 


io6  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

With  regard  to  the  first,  that  is,  the  special  indi- 
vidual element,  it  arose  out  of  the  political  state  of 
the  country.  The  great  barons  were  not  brought 
so  decidedly  under  the  monarch  as  they  were  in 
England.  They  often  fought  for  their  own  hand 
against  the  crown.  Like  independent  chieftains, 
they  went  to  war  with  one  another.  They  lived 
their  own  life  in  the  midst  of  their  own  people. 
Nor  did  this  belong  only  to  the  higher  ranks.  Every 
little  border  chieftain,  almost  every  border  farmer 
was,  or  felt  himself  to  be,  his  own  master,  and  fought 
for  his  own  interest  alone.  There  was  no  welding 
together,  or  but  little,  of  village  to  village,  of  county 
to  county,  of  the  whole  nation  into  one  corporate  body 
in  which  men  might  learn  to  suppress  their  individual 
wills  in  the  interest  of  the  whole.  Even  when  this 
came  to  be  done,  there  was  always  close  beside 
them,  in  the  Highlands,  a  great  extent  of  country 
in  which  individualism  ran  riot,  in  which  every  clan 
boasted  itself  of  its  distinctness,  in  which  every  head 
of  a  clan  was  like  a  little  monarch.  The  example 
of  this,  the  influence  of  it,  long  ministered  to  the 
Lowland  lovers  of  individuality  in  political  life  ;  and 
on  the  Border,  where  war  was  always  going  on  with 
England,  the  habit  of  independent  individualism 
lasted  till  very  late  in  the  history  of  Scotland. 

This  is  clearly  seen  all  through  Scottish  poetry 
from  the  year  1370  to  this  century,  and  Scott  was 
one  of  his  race  in  this.  He  loved  with  all  his 
heart  this  free,  original,  individual  life.  He 
found   in    it   all   the  elements  of  the   romance   he 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  107 

loved.  The  first  thing  he  published  was  a  collec- 
tion and  expansion  of  the  Border  ballads,  in  which 
the  personal  passions,  personal  wars,  personal  legends 
of  men  and  women  who  lived  alone  in  single  towers 
and  on  their  own  piece  of  land  were  recorded. 

By  the  sword  they  won  their  land, 
And  by  the  sword  they  hold  it  still. 

One  of  the  most  vigorous  pieces  of  poetry  in  the 
Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel  is  the  account  of  how  the 
Scotts  won  Eskdale  from  the  Beattisons,  and  it 
records  a  state  of  things  in  which  individual  war 
and  passion  are  unchecked. 

It  follows  from  this  that  Scott  would  have  a 
special  delight  in  drawing  clearly  outlined  types  of 
men,  of  all  kinds  from  the  king  to  the  peasant. 
We  know  from  his  novels  how  vital  was  his  power 
of  individualising.  There  is  nowhere,  save  in 
Chaucer  and  Shakespeare,  such  a  gallery  of  vivid 
portraits  of  men  and  women  as  we  have  in  the 
work  of  Walter  Scott.  His  pencil  lives  along  each 
line  he  wrote  when  he  described  a  personality. 

This  power  is  not  less  vivid  in  his  poetry.  It 
is  not,  of  course,  a  power  which  is  confined  to  Scot- 
tish poets.  All  the  greatest  poets  possess  it.  But 
it  came  easily,  owing  to  the  conditions  of  Scottish 
life,  to  the  poets  of  Scotland,  and  its  excellence  in 
the  work  of  Scott  places  him,  in  that  matter,  if  in 
that  alone,  along  with  the  greater  poets.  It  is  not 
only  that  the  men  are  drawn  vividly.  The  men  are 
also  types,  and  the  types  are  as  varied  as  they  are 


io8  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

clear.  Sir  William  of  Deloraine,  Roderick  Dhu,  the 
Lord  of  Harden,  Sir  David  Lyndsay,  Marmion, 
the  Douglas  in  Marmion^  the  Douglas  in  the  Lady 
of  the  Lake^  James  iv.,  stand  forth  so  clear  that  we 
should  know  them  if  we  met  them  now  on  a  Border 
moor.  Nor  is  his  outline  less  luminous  when  he 
treats  of  the  Border  farmer,  of  the  small  chieftain, 
of  the  archer,  and  the  Highland  vassal.  Who  that 
has  read  it  has  forgotten  the  description  of  Wat 
Tinlinn  and  his  folk  ? 

Whiles  thus  he  spoke,  the  bold  yeoman 

Entered  the  echoing  barbican. 

He  led  a  small  and  shaggy  nag 

That  through  a  bog  from  hag  to  hag 

Could  bound  like  any  Billhope  stag. 

It  bore  his  wife  and  children  twain  ; 

A  half-clothed  serf  was  all  their  train ; 

His  wife,  stout,  ruddy,  and  dark-brow'd, 

Of  silver  brooch  and  bracelet  proud. 

Laughed  to  her  friends  among  the  crowd. 

He  was  of  stature  passing  tall. 

But  sparely  formed,  and  lean  withal  ; 

A  battered  morion  on  his  brow  ; 

A  leather  jack,  as  fence  enow. 

On  his  broad  shoulders  loosely  hung ; 

A  Border  axe  behind  was  slung ; 

His  spear,  six  Scottish  ells  in  length, 

Seemed  newly  dyed  in  gore. 
His  shafts  and  bow,  of  wondrous  strength, 

His  hardy  partner  bore. 

The  man  stands  alive  before  us.  This  is  the 
individualising  power  of  Scott,  and  for  further  proof 
of  it  we  may  read  the  description   in    Marmion^ 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  109 

canto  v.,  of  the  camp  of  James  iv.,  when  Marmion 
and  Fitz-Eustace  ride  into  it.  There  Scott  sketches 
with  his  romantic,  clear,  and  lively  pencil  the  great 
noble,  the  chivalric  knight,  the  bold  and  youthful 
squire,  the  stern  burgher,  the  yeoman,  the  Borderer, 
and  the  Highlander,  all  together,  and  yet  so  fiercely 
individual  are  they,  each  and  all,  that  it  is  with 
difficulty  peace  is  kept  within  the  camp. 

The  second  of  these  historical  elements  in  which 
Scott  shares,  and  which  connect  him  with  all  the 
previous  poets  of  Scotland,  is  his  resolute  nationality. 
The  English  were  as  national  as  the  Scots,  and  felt 
as  keen  a  patriotism.  But  they  had  no  need  to 
assert  it  specially ;  no  one  was  trying  to  suppress 
their  national  existence.  On  the  other  hand,  for 
many  years,  Scotland  had  to  fight  tooth  and  nail 
against  the  efforts  of  England  to  overthrow  her 
national  life.  This,  and  the  wars  for  freedom,  left 
their  traces  in  all  her  poetry  from  James  i.,  who  had 
been  a  captive  in  England  shortly  after  the  death 
of  Chaucer  ;  from  Barbour,  who  wrote  the  deeds 
of  the  Bruce  before  the  death  of  Chaucer ;  down 
to  Fergusson  and  Burns.  Scotland,  her  liberty,  her 
heroes,  her  nationality,  are  thrust  forward,  almost 
obtrusively,  by  every  poet.  This  appears,  even 
more  remarkably,  in  their  natural  description.  In 
the  early  poets  the  conventional  form  of  beginning 
a  poem,  borrowed  from  Chaucer,  is  used  from  the 
time  of  James  i.  to  Sir  David  Lyndsay  in  all  the 
more  important  poems.  There  is  a  dream,  a  May 
morning,  or  a  winter  day  ;    but  the  point  is  this, 


no  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

that  the  traditionary  landscape  is  departed  from, 
and  a  Scottish  landscape  introduced,  which  is  de- 
scribed with  accuracy,  and  with  the  poet's  eye  upon 
the  subject.  The  Scottish  poets  became  original 
observers  of  nature  through  the  force  of  their 
national  feeling.  Every  one  knows  how  vivid  the 
Scottish  landscape  is  in  Burns,  how  he  loves  it,  and 
how  passionately  he  speaks  of  his  native  land.  And 
this  element  is  no  less  vigorous  in  Walter  Scott,  no 
less  determined,  no  less — I  had  almost  said — obtru- 
sive. His  poems  of  other  countries  have  no  salt  in 
them,  no  fire.  When  he  wrote  cavalier  songs,  the 
only  one  worth  a  chaplet  is  Bonny  Dundee.  Rokeby^ 
even,  though  it  belongs  to  the  Border,  is  cold  in 
comparison  to  the  three  Scottish  poems  which  pre- 
ceded it.  It  is  the  natural  description  of  his  native 
land,  and  of  her  fight  for  freedom,  which  redeems 
the  heaviness  of  the  story  of  the  Lord  of  the  Isles. 
The  finest  thing  in  Marmion  is  the  description  of 
the  last,  stern,  desperate  struggle  of  king  and  noble, 
burgher  and  peasant  at  Flodden  Field,  where,  till 
night  fell  on  the  fight, 

The  stubborn  spearmen  still  made  good 
The  dark  impenetrable  wood 

against  the  English  foe. 

The  men  he  loves  most  are  those  the  tale  of  whose 
life  is  steeped  in  loyalty  to  Scotland.  The  places 
he  loves  most  are  those  round  which  has  gathered 
the  history  of  the  Scottish  chiefs,  their  wars,  their 
piping,  their  loves,  their  woes,  their  castles,  their 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  iii 

exile  life  in  moor  and  cave  and  forest.  The  scenery 
he  loves  most  and  describes  the  best  is  the  scenery 
of  the  Border,  the  wind  of  whose  hills  blows  freshly 
through  his  verse,  and  of  the  Highland  country 
close  to  the  Lowland  frontier,  where  every  step  has 
its  ancestral  story.  For  the  Highlands  themselves 
he  does  not  care  so  much,  for  they  are  not  so  close 
to  the  theatre  of  the  national  war.  The  piece  of 
country  outside  the  Border  he  most  delights  in  is 
the  piece  round  Stirling  and  Edinburgh.  Edinburgh 
itself,  the  centre  of  his  land,  is  passionately  loved 
and  described.  '  Mine  own  romantic  town,'  he 
cries  in  Marmion^  and  Lyndsay  smiled,  nor  did 
Marmion  frown  when  Fitz-Eustace's  heart,  en- 
raptured at  the  beauty  of  the  scene  from  Blackford 
Hill,  broke  out : 

O,  where  's  the  coward  that  would  not  dare 
To  fight  for  such  a  land. 

The  most  passionate  outburst  in  the  Lay  of  the  Last 
Minstrel  is  the  address  to  his  country  and  its 
scenery : 

Breathes  there  the  man,  with  soul  so  dead, 
Who  never  to  himself  hath  said, 

This  is  my  own,  my  native  land ! 
Whose  heart  hath  ne'er  within  him  burn'd, 
As  home  his  footsteps  he  hath  turn'd, 

From  wandering  on  a  foreign  strand ! 
If  such  there  breathe,  go,  mark  him  well ; 
For  him  no  minstrel  raptures  swell ; 
High  though  his  titles,  proud  his  name, 
Boundless  his  wealth  as  wish  can  claim ; 


112  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

Despite  those  titles,  power,  and  pelf, 

The  wretch,  concentred  all  in  self. 

Living,  shall  forfeit  fair  renown. 

And,  doubly  dying,  shall  go  down 

To  the  vile  dust,  from  whence  he  sprung. 

Unwept,  unhonoured,  and  unsung. 

O  Caledonia  !    stern  and  wild. 

Meet  nurse  for  a  poetic  child ! 

Land  of  brown  heath  and  shaggy  wood, 

Land  of  the  mountain  and  the  flood, 

Land  of  my  sires  !   what  mortal  hand 

Can  e'er  untie  the  filial  band. 

That  knits  me  to  thy  rugged  strand  ! 

Still,  as  I  view  each  well-known  scene, 

Think  what  is  now,  and  what  hath  been, 

Seems  as,  to  me,  of  all  bereft. 

Sole  friends  thy  woods  and  streams  were  left ; 

And  thus  I  love  them  better  still. 

Even  in  extremity  of  ill. 

By  Yarrow's  stream  still  let  me  stray. 

Though  none  should  guide  my  feeble  way ; 

Still  feel  the  breeze  down  Ettrick  break. 

Although  it  chill  my  withered  cheek ;    • 

Still  lay  my  head  by  Teviot  Stone, 

Though  there,  forgotten  and  alone. 

The  Bard  may  draw  his  parting  groan. 

We  listen  to  the  very  heart  of  Scott  ;  the  life- 
blood  of  his  poetry  flows  in  it.  He  never  lost  that 
passion.  It  ceased  to  be  joyous,  it  became  full  of 
sadness.  The  noble,  but  desperate  struggle  of  his 
later  years,  the  noblest  eiFort  recorded,  I  think, 
in  English  literature,  of  an  enduring,  strong,  and 
faithful  battle  with  misfortune,  a  battle  which,  while 
he  conquered  in  it,  killed  him — made  his  love  of 
country  sorrowful,  but  did  not  lessen  its  intensity. 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT  113 

His  youthful  summer  '  danced  by  on  wings  of  game 
and  glee/     The  dark  ^  storm  reserved  its  rage ' 

Against  the  winter  of  his  age, 

but  in  the  storm  of  winter  age,  as  in  the  summer 
of  youth,  he  was  always  the  impassioned  patriot. 

When  he  was  smitten  with  paralysis  in  1830-1, 
he  was  sent  to  the  Mediterranean  to  recover 
strength  ;  but 

Nature's  loveliest  looks, 
Art's  noblest  relics,  history's  rich  bequests, 
Failed  to  reanimate,  and  but  feebly  cheered, 
The  whole  world's  Darling. 

The  news  of  Goethe's  death  was  brought  him. 
'  He,  at  least,  died  at  home,'  said  Scott,  '  let  us  to 
Abbotsford.'  They  carried  him  through  London 
across  England  to  Scotland.  He  lay  all  but  lifeless 
in  his  carriage,  as  he  drew  near  to  the  scenes  he 
loved  so  well.  *As  we  descended'  says  Lockhart 
'  the  vale  of  Gala,  he  began  to  gaze  about  him,  and 
by  degrees  it  was  obvious  that  he  was  recognising 
the  features  of  that  familiar  landscape.  Presently 
he  murmured  a  name  or  two — '^  Gala  water,  surely, 
Buckholm,  Torwoodlee."  As  we  rounded  the  hill 
and  the  outline  of  the  Eildons  burst  upon  him  he 
became  greatly  excited  ;  and  when,  turning  himself 
on  his  couch,  his  eye  caught  at  length  his  own 
towers,  at  the  distance  of  a  mile,  he  sprang  up  with 
a  cry  of  delight.' 

H 


114  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

And  there,  on  a  lovely  day,  ^so  perfectly  still 
that  the  sound  of  all  others  most  delicious  to  his 
ears,  the  gentle  ripple  of  the  Tweed  over  its  pebbles, 
was  distinctly  audible  as  we  knelt  around  the  bed, 
his  eldest  son  kissed  and  closed  his  eyes.' 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  TO  THE 
SHELLEY  SOCIETY,  Wednesday,  March 
lo,  1886,  at  University  College,  London. 

It  has  been  asked,  *  Why  have  a  Shelley  Society  ? 
Those  who  care  for  him  will  read  him  without  the 
impulse  of  such  a  Society,  nor  will  they  enjoy  him 
the  more,  but  the  less  perhaps,  when  they  hear 
what  the  critics  have  to  say  about  him.'  The 
question  has  a  good  deal  of  weight,  but  the  answer 
is  that  it  '  is  our  humour '  to  have  the  Society,  and 
that  four  hundred  persons  have  also  said,  '  It  is 
my  humour,' — and  an  excellent  reason  it  is  for  any 
literary  society  whatever.  But  we  are  also  interested 
in  collecting  all  that  has  been  said  about  Shelley  in 
the  past,  not  for  the  purpose  of  helping  us  to  love 
his  poetry  more,  but  for  the  sake  of  entertaining 
ourselves  with  the  contrast  between  the  opinions  of 
critics  concerning  a  true  poet  when  he  is  alive,  and 
the  view  taken  of  him  by  the  world  when  he  has 
been  dead  for  sixty  years.  Shelley  is  one  of  the 
most  striking  instances  in  our  time  of  the  way  in 
which  an  artist,  ignored  or  abused  in  his  own  day, 
rises  from  the  grave  into  which  the  critics  have 
trampled  him,  and,  when  their  noxious  names  have 

116 


ii6  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

perished,  lives  as  a  power  in  the  hearts  of  men. 
This  kind  of  thing  fits  our  humour,  both  when  we 
are  a  little  spiteful  with  the  analytic  tribe,  and  also 
when  we  wish  to  cherish  our  own  appreciation  of 
Shelley. 

Then,  again,  it  pleases  us  to  have  facsimiles  of 
the  first  editions  of  Shelley,  and  other  bibliographical 
curiosities.  I  do  not  say  that  this  is  a  very  high 
ambition,  nor  that  it  has  anything  to  do  with  love 
of  poetry  ;  yet  it  is  a  harmless  and  innocent  fancy, 
and  just  as  good  as  the  little  fancies  other  folk  may 
have  about  great  men  for  whom  they  care.  A  lover 
likes  everything  that  puts  him  in  mind  of  his  mis- 
tress, even  a  picture  of  the  room  she  dwelt  in, 
and  we  may  like  to  see  how  Shelley  clothed  his 
books.  For  in  this  case  there  is  a  distinct  interest. 
Shelley  looked  after  the  'get-up'  of  many  of  his 
poems  and  pamphlets  himself,  above  all,  those  that 
were  printed  in  Italy,  and  we  seem  to  touch  his 
personality  in  these  examples. 

Moreover,  there  is  another  reason  for  our  Society. 
There  are  persons,  most  of  whom  already  belong  to 
us,  who  have  made  Shelley,  his  life  and  poetry,  a 
special  study.  Many  things  continually  occur  to 
them  which  may  be  worth  saying  briefly,  but  which 
would  scarcely  form  enough  material  for  a  public 
paper.  In  this  Society  these  persons  will  find  room 
to  air  their  theories  and  criticisms;  and  some  of 
them  will  be  interesting  hereafter.  Once  m6re,.as 
another  biography  of  Shelley  will  soon  be  published, 
several  new  questions  will  be  before  us,  and  we  shall 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  SHELLEY  SOCIETY     117 

all  be  interested  to  hear,  through  this  Society,  the 
discussion  of  these  questions. 

After  all  has  been  said,  however,  these  reasons  for 
this  Society  run  up  into  the  first — '  It  is  our  humour.' 
We  are  lovers  of  Shelley,  and  we  like  to  bring  together 
into  one  body  a  number  of  persons  who  will  not  only 
make  him  a  lonely  pleasure,  but  will  combine  to  read, 
study,  and  talk  about  him  with  one  another. 

Secondly,  the  question,  '  Why  should  we  have  a 
Shelley  Society  ? '  brings  us  face  to  face  with  those 
persons  who,  while  they  really  care  for  poetry,  do 
not  care  for  Shelley's  poetry.  I  can  imagine  Mr. 
Matthew  Arnold,  who  is  such  a  person,  being  even 
distressed  in  mind,  or  perhaps  contemptuous,  when 
he  hears  of  this  Society.  He  has  discovered,  after 
he  has  divested  his  mind  of  the  personal  charm  of 
Shelley,  ^  the  incurable  want  in  his  poetry  of  a  sound 
subject-matter,  and  the  incurable  fault,  in  conse- 
quence, of  unsubstantiality ' ;  and  I  fear  lest  he 
should  extend  this  accusation  to  us  in  general.  He 
will  tell  us  we  are  about  to  study  the  unsubstantial, 
and  that  no  good  can  come  of  it.  He  will  advise  us 
to  turn  to  Wordsworth — there  is  a  poet  who  has 
laid  hold  of  the  poet's  right  subject-matter.  Again 
he  cries.  Turn  to  Byron — there  is  a  poet,  selections 
from  whom  will  make  up  a  volume  which  for  real 
substance,  power,  and  worth,  will  far  overweigh  a 
volume  from  Shelley. 

Well,  with  regard  to  Byron,  I  am  quite  willing  to 
say  that  he  is  at  present  underrated  and  that  Arnold's 
attempt  to  place  him  in  a  higher  position  is  a  just 


ii8  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

thing  to  do.  But  why  could  he  not  leave  Shelley 
alone?  why  weaken  his  praise  of  Byron  by  a  dis- 
praise of  Shelley,  which  proves  that  he  has  lost  the 
power  he  once  had  of  distinguishing  what  was  best 
in  imagination,  in  art,  and  in  melody  ?  Even  now, 
I  should  like  to  appeal  from  Mr.  Arnold  the  critic  to 
Mr.  Arnold  the  poet ;  but  it  would  be  no  use,  for 
he  actually  maintains  that  selections  from  Byron 
are  more  interesting  and  more  valuable  than  any 
selections  from  Shelley.  It  is  a  very  fantastic  asser- 
tion on  his  lips,  and  the  books,  I  venture  to  say, 
prove  that  he  is  wrong.  Byron  does  not  shine  in 
selections,  Shelley  does ;  nor,  indeed,  can  Byron 
compare  with  Shelley  in  what  Mr.  Arnold  would 
call  'truth,  seriousness  of  substance  and  matter, 
felicity  of  diction  and  manner.'  Felicity  of  diction 
and  manner  !  That  is  the  most  amusing  of  the 
comparisons. 

Byron  was  rarely  true  to  himself  in  his  poetry  ; 
no,  not  altogether,  I  believe,  in  Don  Juan^  at 
least,  not  in  the  closing  cantos.  Indeed,  I  doubt 
whether,  during  a  good  portion  of  his  life,  until 
he  was  weary  of  vanity  and  acting,  he  had  any 
self  to  which  to  be  true,  so  much  had  he  overlaid 
his  own  personality  with  another  which  he  dressed 
up  for  the  world.  It  is  this  falsehood,  or  rather 
fiction,  in  his  work  which  will  always  prevent  men 
and  women  from  loving  it  as  well  as  they  love 
Shelley,  who  is  always  true  to  himself.  Goethe, 
who  praised  Byron's  work,  mistook  the  unreal  for  the 
real  man,  because  the  unreal  was  done  with  so  much 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  SHELLEY  SOCIETY    119 

power,  and  because  he  read  Byron  in  a  foreign 
tongue.  A  great  deal  too  much  has  been  made 
of  the  great  German's  praise  (which  indeed  he 
carefully  modified),  without  any  thought  of  how 
changed  his  view  would  have  become  had  he  been 
able  to  recognise  that  the  whole  sentiment  of 
Byron's  earlier  work  was  not  true.  Werther  was 
ten  times  more  true  to  Goethe  than  Manfred  was  to 
Byron. 

Shelley  was  not  so  blinded  in  this  matter — and  I 
may  as  well  interpolate  here  what  Shelley  thought  of 
Byron,  remembering  always  how  unenvious  and  how 
frank  Shelley's  judgment  was.  It  has  been  said  by 
Mr.  Arnold  '  that  Shelley  knew  well  the  difference 
between  the  achievement  of  such  a  poet  as  Byron 
and  his  own.  He  praises  Byron  too  unreservedly, 
but  he  sincerely  felt,  and  he  was  right  in  feeling, 
that  Byron  was  a  greater  poetical  power  than  him- 
self.' One  would  think  from  this  that  Shelley  had 
praised  all  Byron's  work,  and  that  he  had  never  felt 
the  weakness  of  Byron  in  poetry.  He  does  say 
with  regard  to  one  of  the  cantos  of  Don  Juan^  that 
it  sets  Byron  not  only  above,  but  far  above,  all  the 
poets  of  the  day — every  word  is  stamped  with  im- 
mortality. '  I  despair  of  rivalling  Lord  Byron,  as  well 
I  may.' — He  does  say  with  regard  to  Cain  ^  that  it  is 
the  finest  thing  any  poet  has  produced  in  England 
since  Paradise  Regained'' — a  phrase  which  proves 
Shelley's  friendship  for  Byron,  or  his  pleasure  in  an 
attack  on  orthodox  religion,  more  than  his  critical 
acumen.    But  that,  with  the  exception  of  a  fragment 


120  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

and  a  sonnet  among  the  poems  which  depreciate  him- 
self and  exalt  Byron,  is  nearly  all  ;  and  it  is  a  small 
foundation  on  which  to  build  so  large  and  so  con- 
fident an  assertion  as  that  which  Mr.  Arnold  makes. 
The  fact  is,  that  Shelley  had  no  such  unreserved  an 
opinion  about  Lord  Byron's  work,  and  sometimes 
contrasted  it  (but  only  to  his  friends)  with  his  own. 
'  If  Marino  Faliero  is  a  drama/  he  says,  ^  then  The 
Cenci  is  not.'  He  differed  also,  and  as  much  as 
possible,  from  Byron  about  poetry.  He  declared 
that  '  Byron  patronised  a  system  of  criticism  only 
fit  for  the  production  of  mediocrity,  and  though  all 
his  fine  poems  have  been  produced  in  defiance  of 
this  system,  yet  I  recognise  the  pernicious  effects 
of  it  in  the  Doge  of  Venice.^  He  is  indignant  with 
the  spirit — the  want  of  truth,  the  tone  of  mind, 
which  animates  certain  cantos  of  Childe  Harold. 
^  It  is  a  spirit,  which,  if  insane,  is  the  most  wicked 
and  mischievous  insanity  :  an  obstinate  and  self- 
willed  folly  in  which  he  hardens  himself.  Lord 
Byron  is  heartily  and  deeply  discontented  with  him- 
self, and  contemplating  in  the  distorted  mirror  of 
his  own  thoughts  the  nature  and  the  destiny  of 
man,  what  can  he  behold  but  objects  of  contempt 
and  despair .? '  At  least  Shelley  did  not  think 
that  Byron  had  'seriousness  of  subject  or  matter' 
— and  as  to  Shelley's  poetical  judgment  on  Childe 
Harold^  this  phrase  which  follows  does  not  prove 
that  he  was  unreserved  in  his  praise.  It  is 
almost  contemptuous.  '  But  that  he  is  a  great  poet 
I  think  his  address  to  Ocean  proves.'     He  had  a 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  SHELLEY  SOCIETY     121 

sincere,  even  an  enthusiastic  admiration  for  Byron's 
power;  with  his  characteristic  modesty  he  placed 
his  work  below  Byron's  ;  but  there  were  hours 
when  he  felt  quite  differently,  and  knew,  like  Words- 
worth, that  if  Byron  was  among  the  immortals,  so 
was  he.  Moreover,  he  felt,  and  felt  strongly,  that 
Byron  had  not  the  qualities  which  make  a  poet 
always  great.  What  those  qualities  are  he  has  him- 
self laid  down.  For  he  asks  concerning  Ariosto — 
^  Where  is  the  gentle  seriousness,  the  delicate  sensi-  ' 
bility,  the  calm  and  sustained  energy,  without  which 
true  greatness  cannot  be  ? '  These  were  not  qualities 
he  saw  in  Byron  ;  nor  had  he  the  slightest  sympathy 
with  his  friend's  desire  to  attract  to  himself  the 
wonder  or  the  admiration  of  the  world.  This 
element  in  Byron's  poetry  was  incomprehensible  by 
Shelley,  who,  though  he  desired  to  live  in  men's 
hearts,  was  wholly  without  care  for  the  applause  of 
the  world.  Here  is  a  phrase  from  one  of  his 
letters  : 

*  I  am  fully  repaid  for  the  painful  emotions  from 
which  some  verses  of  my  poem  sprung,  by  your 
sympathy  and  approbation — which  is  all  the  reward 
I  expect — and  as  much  as  I  desire.  It  is  not  for  me 
to  judge  whether,  in  the  high  praise  your  feelings 
assign  me,  you  are  right  or  wrong.  The  poet  and 
the  man  are  two  different  natures  ;  though  they 
exist  together,  they  may  be  unconscious  of  each 
other,  and  incapable  of  deciding  on  each  other's 
powers  and  efforts  by  any  reflex  act.  The  decision 
of  the  cause,  whether  or  no  I  am  a  poet,  is  removed 


122  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

from  the  present  time  to  the  hour  when  our  pos- 
terity shall  assemble  ;  but  the  court  is  a  very  severe 
one,  and  I  fear  that  the  verdict  will  be,  "  Guilty — 
death  ! "  ' 

The  fact  is  that  Shelley  did  care  for  truth,  and 
was  always  true  to  himself     Whether  he  was  the 
poet  with   high  hopes  for  man,  or   the  poet  who 
describes  himself — it  is  always  Shelley  that  we  see 
and  feel  in  his  poetry,  not  a  man  made  up  in  any 
way  for  presentation   to   the  world.      We  are  in 
contact  with  a  clear  individuality,  as  we   are  with 
Wordsworth  ;  and  this  makes  Shelley  vitally  Inter- 
esting  to  all  those  who  have  anything,  naturally, 
of  his  temper,  or  who  at  certain  times  of  their  lives 
pass  through  the  supersensuous  realm  In  which  he 
lived.    It  is  by  no  means  a  common  temper,  and 
because  of  its  want  of  touch  with  daily  life,  with 
simple  sorrows  and  pleasures,   I    never   claim  for 
Shelley  a  position  equal  with  Wordsworth  when  I 
)     compare  the  whole  of  the  one  poet's  work  with  that 
(     of  the  other  ;  but  the  temper  of  Shelley  is  a  real 
human  temper,  and  It  is  the  same,  with  the  subtle 
\    changes  wrought  by  the  years.  In  its  twofold  mani- 
festation— social  and  personal — from  the  beginning 
,    to  the  end.     This  truthfulness  to  his  own  nature  Is 
plain  enough  in  the  longer  poems.     It  is  as  plain  In 
^ '  the  lyrics  ;  every  lyric  is  an  outburst  of  himself,  of 
what  he  felt  passionately  for  others  or  for  himself. 

As  to  the  lyrics  themselves,  who  can  compare 
them  to  Byron's  ?  Take  all  Byron's  lyrics  together 
— will  they  outweigh  three   or  four  of  Shelley's? 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  SHELLEY  SOCIETY     123 

Take  the  Cain  which  Shelley  thought  so  great ;  will 
it  stand  comparison  with  the  Prometheus  Unbound'? 
I  do  not  mean  only  in  poetical  quality  of  verse,  or  in 
imaginative  conception — but  in  gravity  of  thought, 
in  freedom  from  self-consideration,  in  serious  at- 
tempt, founded  on  serious  thinking,  to  grasp  the 
problem  of  evil  and  of  good. 

The  same  kind  of  truthfulness  extended  to  Shel- 
ley's drawing  of  natural  scenery.  Byron,  even  in 
his  best  descriptions,  introduces  lines  which  show  us 
that  he  was  not  lost  in  love  of  that  which  he  de- 
scribed, metaphors  which  are  so  far-fetched  that  we 
know  he  was  working,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  in  the 
studio,  and  not  from  nature  herself ;  sudden  screams 
of  his  own  personality  ;  false  notes  which  take  us 
away  from  the  object,  and  which  have  nothing  to  do 
with  it.  A  metaphor  like  that  contained  in  these 
lines : 

O  night,  and  storm,  and  darkness,  ye  are  wondrous  strong, 
And  lovely  in  your  loveliness,  as  is  the  light 
Of  a  dark  eye  in  woman ; 

or  this — when  he  is  dwelling  on  the  rainbow  which 
arches  over  the  cataract  of  Velino  : 

Resembling,  'mid  the  torture  of  the  scene, 
Love  watching  madness  with  unalterable  mien — 

are  not  to  be  found,  nor  anything  resembling  their 
far-fetched  untruthfulness,  from  end  to  end  of 
Shelley — not  even  when  he  is  most  victimised  by 
his  own  intemperance  of  imagination.     At  his  very 


124  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

worst,  even  when  he  is  most  redundant,  he  Is  true  to 
nature.  At  his  best,  he  Is  Involved  In  nature,  and 
describes  what  he  sees  of  her  with  the  closest  accu- 
racy to  the  general  and  changing  Impression  of  the 
scene.  Like  Turner,  he  painted  his  impressions, 
but  the  Impressions  are  true  to  things  as  they  are.  I 
challenge  the  descriptive  poetry  of  this  century  In 
England  to  surpass  In  accuracy  of  observation,  and  In 
composition  of  an  Imaginative  whole,  the  descrip- 
tion which  occurs  In  the  Prometheus  of  the  great 
Alpine  valley  seen  at  dawn  from  the  heights  above  It. 
In  splendour  and  In  truth  it  stands  clear  In  the 
poetry  which  describes  sublime  and  vast  nature  ;  and 
the  way  In  which  It  closes,  with  a  comparison  which 
binds  up  the  whole  scene  with  human  history,  and 
which  fits  like  a  glove  to  the  matter  described  and 
to  the  subject  of  the  poem,  may  well  be  compared 
with  such  paltry  analogies  as  Byron's  of  the  rainbow 
to  love  and  the  cataract  to  madness. 

As  to  truth  to  human  nature — I  have  elsewhere 
said  that  when  Shelley  wrote  about  himself,  he  often 
described  a  certain  vague,  sceptical,  discontented, 
aspiring  or  depressed  condition  of  human  life  which 
has  a  great  interest  for  us  at  the  present  time, 
because  so  many  of  us  share  In  it,  and  among  these 
some  of  his  critics.  But  It  Is  a  condition  of  which 
he  himself  strongly  disapproves.  The  preface  to 
Alastor  Is  enough  to  allege  as  evidence  of  this  dis- 
approval. He  wrote  that  poem  In  order  to  get  rid, 
as  far  as  possible,  of  this  condition,  and  so  far  the 
matter  of  the  poem  was  serious.     The  only  cure  for 


OF 

ADDRESS  TO  THE  SHELLEY  SOCIETY     125 

it  in  the  poem  was  death;  and  Shelley  was  never 
cured  of  its  recurrent  attacks  until  he  died. 

Another  set  of  his  poems,  those  which  belong  to 
love,  to  regrets,  to  metaphysical  passion,  cannot  be 
said  to  be  serious  in  substance.  They  are  woven  of 
ether  and  fine  fire,  but  nevertheless  they  are  true  to 
human  nature,  to  many  passing  phases  of  feeling,  and 
no  one  else  has  embodied  these  remote  and  subtle 
phases.  Our  life  is  not  all  passed  in  the  realm  of 
realities,  of  simple  sorrows  and  joys.  We  are  often 
such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of,  and  we  suffer  and 
rejoice  as  much  in  our  illusions — if  they  are  not 
often  the  truest  things  in  life — as  in  that  which  we 
call  real  life.  If,  however,  all  Shelley's  poetry  con- 
sisted of  this  soft-spun  cloudland,  of  this  ethereal 
quintessence  of  delicate  imaginings,  we  might  fairly 
blame  him  ;  but  it  did  not.  We  accept  this  side, 
then,  of  his  work,  and  are  grateful  to  him  for  ex- 
pressing that  in  us  which  no  English  poet  has  ever 
expressed  so  well. 

But  it  would  be  unfair,  on  account  of  these  per- 
sonal poems,  to  say  that  Shelley  had  no  serious 
human  aims.  There  was  another  side  to  his  poetry. 
It  is  the  poetry  he  dedicated  to  the  service  of  man- 
kind. And  it  is  in  this  that  we  find  that  gravity 
of  substance  and  matter  which  Mr.  Arnold  denies 
and  desires.  The  matter  was  not  the  matter  of 
Wordsworth  or  Tennyson  ;  it  does  not  treat  of 
,  human  life  as  it  is.  But  it  treats  of  what  is  also  of 
great  importance  to  us — of  human  life  as  it  may 
become  when  it  is  freed  from  evils.     Shelley  brought 


126  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

those  evils  forward,  described  them  as  he  hated 
them,  and  caused  a  great  and  increasing  number  of 
people  to  hate  them  and  oppose  them  more  heartily. 
Few  in  poetry  have  done  more  than  he  to  overthrow 
false  conceptions  of  God,  to  undo  the  network  of 
false  reverences  ;  to  shake  the  foundations  of  injustice, 
of  cruel  superstition,  of  tyranny,  of  caste,  of  slavery 
of  mind  and  body.  This  is  part  of  the  grave 
matter  of  his  poetry,  and  it  employs  itself  in  con- 
structive as  well  as  destructive  work.  He  not  only 
denounced  injustice,  he  loved  justice  and  revealed 
it — not  vague  justice,  but  justice  made  universal  in 
act.  Freedom  was  dear  to  him,  and  above  all  love  ; 
and  his  human  poetry  is  steeped  in  these  as  a 
summer  garden  is  in  sunshine.  Nor  is  there  any 
tenderer  song  of  the  loveliness  and  duty  of  absolute 
and  unrevenging  forgiveness  than  is  heard  through 
Shelley's  poetry.  These  are  serious  things  that  he 
has  given  to  us,  and  the  world  will  always  be  grate- 
ful for  this  religious  gravity  in  his  teaching.  It  is  a 
high  matter  for  a  poet's  work,  and  it  will  have  more 
and  more  of  effect  on  men.  For  the  whole  question 
of  the  social  future  of  man  is  rising  in  a  special  way 
into  increasing  eminence  ;  and  the  method  Shelley 
laid  down  for  attaining  the  perfect  state  is  that  of 
Jesus  Christ ;  and  is  stated  by  him  with  strong 
reiteration.  That  method  is  in  direct  opposition 
to  the  method  of  force,  of  punishment,  even  to  the 
method  of  enactment,  and  the  faith  in  its  efficacy 
was  bound  up  with  his  whole  being.  Whatever  we 
may  think  of  the  lesson  or  of  the  way  he  gave  it,  it 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  SHELLEY  SOCIETY    127 

is  not  wanting  in  grave  purpose,  nor  in  substance, 
nor  is  it  an  unsubstantial  foundation  for  poetry.  To 
preach  justice  and  mercy,  and  love  and  freedom,  to 
lay  down  the  spiritual  means  of  their  attainment,  and 
to  extol  them  in  exultant  verse,  is  part  of  the  serious 
business  of  all  poets,  and  their  best  work,  as  Words- 
worth's, has  been  done  at  the  time  when  they  felt 
these  duties  to  humanity  as  a  passion.  Never  to 
falter  in  these  causes,  and  to  fight  against  their 
enemies,  without  fear  of  the  world  or  without  care, 
was  Shelley's  honour,  and  I  would  that  all  poets 
had  been  as  faithful  and  as  unworldly. 

It  is  true  that  the  form  in  which  this  matter  was 
cast  was  exceedingly  ideal,  that  its  verse  was  some- 
times visionary,  that  it  was  over-weighted  with 
images,  and  encumbered  by  too  much  ornament, 
that  it  does  not  speak  with  enough  directness  ;  but 
we  are  not  to  deny  the  matter  because  of  the  form, 
and  the  form  belongs  to  the  whole  temper  of 
Shelley's  mind.  It  was  his  way  of  putting  things 
of  profound  importance  into  verse.  And  we  know 
how  serious  they  seemed  to  him  when  we  look  at 
his  life.  He  devoted  it  to  a  practical  support  of 
these  noble  ideas.  The  simple,  the  unworldly  life 
he  lived  may  well  be  contrasted  with  Byron's.  It 
was  as  retired,  as  plain,  as  affectionate  as  Words- 
worth's, and  less  self-regardant.  It  never  sought  for 
fame.  It  was  lived  in  the  most  accurate  morality 
after  the  troubles  of  his  youth  had  passed.  The 
man  had  natural  piety.  He  was  pious  towards 
nature,    towards    his    friends,    towards    the    whole 


128  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

human  race,  towards  the  meanest  insect  of  the 
forest,  towards  the  unimaginable  Love  whom  he 
did  not  define,  but  whom  he  felt  behind  and  in 
the  universe.  Here  is  the  testimony  of  one  who 
knew  him  best.  '  His  life  was  as  simple  as  a 
hermit's.  He  rose  early  in  the  morning,  walked 
and  read  before  breakfast,  took  that  meal  sparingly, 
wrote  and  studied  the  greater  part  of  the  morning, 
dined  on  vegetables  (for  he  took  neither  meat  nor 
wine),  conversed  with  his  friends,  again  walked  out, 
and  usually  finished  with  reading  to  his  wife  till  ten 
o'clock,  when  he  went  to  bed.  His  reading  was 
always  among  the  great  books  of  the  world.  He 
was  as  generous  as  the  day,  and  he  had  no  idea  of 
love  unconnected  with  sentiment.  He  worked 
among  the  poor,  inquired  personally  into  the  lives 
of  those  who  sought  his  help,  visited  the  sick  (hav- 
ing prepared  himself  for  this  by  going  the  round  of 
the  hospitals),  and  kept  a  regular  list  of  industrious 
poor,  whom  he  assisted  with  small  sums  to  make 
up  their  accounts.' 

'  Plain  living  and  high  thinking '  were  in  England 
while  Shelley  lived  in  it ;  and  we  can  understand 
the  horror  he  expressed  at  Byron's  life  in  Venice, 
and  his  feeling  that  no  good  poetic  work  could  be 
done  by  Byron  as  long  as  he  continued  it.  If  con- 
duct is  so  close  to  high  poetry  as  is  said,  the  poetry 
of  Shelley  ought  to  be  full  of  lofty  impulse  to  man- 
kind ;  and  it  has  impelled  men,  and  will  continue 
to  impel  them,  to  noble  thought  and  action.  He 
believed  in  goodness,  he    believed  in   its  ultimate 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  SHELLEY  SOCIETY     129 

triumph,  and  we  recommend  the  belief  to  an  age  of 
scepticism  and  pessimism.  He  hated  materialism 
both  as  a  philosophy  and  a  practice,  and  we  recom- 
mend the  hatred  to  an  age  which  tends  to  refer  all 
things  to  matter,  and  which  seems  often  to  think 
that  to  improve  the  material  life  of  man  is  all  that 
is  needed  for  the  healing  of  the  woes  and  sins 
of  the  human  race.  He  preached  the  duty  of  an 
unworldly  life,  and  he  defended  the  cause  of  the 
poor  and  the  workmen  ;  and  though  he  was  often 
the  poet  of  the  thin  clouds  and  sunsets  of  the  mind, 
he  also  seized  on  substantial  truth  as  his  subject- 
matter  when  he  preached  deliverance  to  the  captive, 
and  to  let  the  oppressed  go  free.  Moreover,  as  he 
grew  older,  his  style  became  more  trenchant  when- 
ever he  had  to  deal  with  his  human  subject.  He 
still  wrote  metaphysical  dr^ms  like  the  Triumph  of 
Life^  but  that  he  could  when  he  pleased  go  straight 
to  his  human  matter,  and  write  of  it  with  incisive 
power,  is  proved  by  his  fragment  of  Charles  I, 
Would  he  had  finished  it ;  but  he  was  too  troubled 
then.  Had  not  old  Proteus  taken  him,  in  love  of 
him,  we  might  have  had  verse  from  him  of  '  power 
no  longer  girt  with  weakness.'  The  lines  I  quote 
are  direct  enough,  fitted  to  be  heard  to-day  by  men 
who  see  social  evils  and  wish  to  remedy  them, 
serious,  close  to  the  modern  as  to  the  ancient  evil. 
They  are  spoken  of  the  luxuriant  pageant  that  passes 
by  in  the  midst  of  the  misery  and  poor  of  London. 

Ay,  there  they  are — 
Nobles,  and  sons  of  nobles,  patentees, 

I 


130  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

Monopolists,  and  stewards  of  this  poor  farm, 
On  whose  lean  sheep  sit  the  prophetic  crows. 
TIere  is  the  pomp  that  strips  the  houseless  orphan, 
Here  is  the  pride  that  breaks  the  desolate  heart. 
These  are  the  lilies  glorious  as  Solomon, 
Who  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin, — unless 
It  be  the  webs  they  catch  poor  rogues  withal. 
Here  is  the  surfeit  which  to  them  who  earn 
The  niggard  wages  of  the  earth,  scarce  leaves 
The  tithe  that  will  support  them  till  they  crawl 
Back  to  its  cold  hard  bosom.     Here  is  health 
Followed  by  grim  disease,  glory  by  shame, 
Waste  by  lame  famine,  wealth  by  squalid  want, 
And  England's  sin  by  England's  punishment. 

As  to  the  artistry  of  his  verse,  the  steady  increase 
of  its  beauty  and  temperance,  which  is  observable 
in  the  work  of  the  last  years  of  his  life,  encourages 
a  deep  regret  that  he  did  not  live  longer  to  present 
us  with  work  of  even  a  greater  felicity  of  diction 
and  manner.  When  he  is  at  his  best,  when  he  has 
carefully  corrected  his  poetry  for  publication,  he  is 
rarely  negligent  in  his  language.  He  went  over  his 
verses  again  and  again,  making  many  experiments, 
changes,  additions,  excisions  —  a  poet  not  easily 
satisfied  with  his  work;  an  artist  eager  for  per- 
fection. It  is  by  the  poems  he  allowed  to  be  chosen 
for  publication  that  he  is  to  be  judged  as  an  artist  ; 
not  by  the  numerous  pieces  of  unfledged  verse 
which  his  unbridled  admirers  have  printed.  They 
are  worth  having,  for  the  most  part,  because  his 
imagination  is  always  moving  in  them,  but  they  are 
not  examples  of  his  artistry.  This  is  a  distinction 
which  should  be   made,  because  those  critics  who 


-A 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  SHELLEY  SOCIETY     131 

depreciate  Shelley  have  lumped  all  his  poems 
together,  and  use  the  inferior  poems  he  did  not  set 
forth  as  finished  as  materials  for  their  criticism. 

The  technique  of  his  lyrics  is,  however,  rarely  in 
fault.  They  have  a  most  lovely,  singular,  high- 
enchanted  charm.  Their  movement  is  extraordi- 
narily musical,  varied  and  inventive,  and  full  of 
sweet,  strange  changes.  But  so  much  has  been  said 
of  this  that  I  leave  it  aside.  What  I  wish  to  dwell 
on  is  the  blank  verse.  We  have  had  a  great  deal 
of  blank  verse  in  England,  and  written  in  many 
fashions  since  Marlowe  began  it,  and  Shakespeare 
perfected  it,  in  the  drama,  since  Milton  clenched  it 
into  its  proper  epic  form  ;  but  since  Milton  wrote 
the  Samson  Agonistes  there  has  been  no  dramatic 
blank  verse  so  free,  so  natural,  yet  so  dignified,  so 
weighty  in  sound,  so  changing  in  pause,  yet  so 
obedient  to  law,  as  that  which  Shelley  used  with 
ease.  In  undramatic  poetry,  the  only  modern  blank 
verse  which  can  be  compared  with  Shelley's  (to  speak 
only  of  the  dead)  is  that  of  Wordsworth,  Keats,  and 
Tennyson.  Wordsworth  sins  from  inequality  of 
level  and  of  music ;  from  a  frequent  dulness,  as  of 
accented  prose.  Keats  reaches  great  ease  and  beauty 
in  the  verse  of  Hyperion^  but  he  does  not  as  yet  know 
his  instrument  well  enough,  or  he  has  not  made 
it  quite  his  own.  It  resembles  Milton  too  much. 
Tennyson  has  made  his  own  instrument ;  It  has  its 
Doric  beauty,  and  the  playing  on  it  is  full  of 
conscious  art.  But  the  art  is  too  much  seen,  the 
technique  too  easy  to    be    imitated.      It   is   over- 


132  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

mannered,  while  the  blank  verse  of  Mr.  Arnold  is 
over  over-mannered.  But  Shelley,  even  in  Alastor, 
used  bFank  verse  as  if  it  were  his  natural  tongue. 
It  is  sweet  and  clear  and  flowing,  quite  his  own, 
changing  with  his  mood  and  with  the  passion  of 
his  thought,  close-knit  or  let  free,  exactly  as  the 
mind  within  him  drove,  or  the  subject  claimed. 
But  it  was  by  no  means  finished  or  formed  then. 
It  had  a  beautiful  and  graceful  nature,  but  it  needed 
education  and  practice.  It  was  much  more  noble  in 
the  Prometheus^  weightier  yet  easier  in  The  Cenci. 
I  am  not  sure  that  it  is  not  at  its  best  in  the  frag- 
ment of  Charles  /.,  the  last  piece  of  blank  verse  he 
wrought. 

These  are  the  things  I  had  to  say  concerning 
Shelley's  truth,  seriousness  of  matter,  and  felicity 
of  musical  expression,  and  with  none  of  them, 
except  partly  with  the  last,  will  Mr.  Arnold  agree. 
But  then  Mr.  Arnold,  in  this  matter  of  Shelley, 
has  allowed  his  dislike  to  Shelley's  unsubstantiality 
to  prejudice  him  against  the  whole  of  Shelley's 
poetry.  His  judgment  has  been  victimised  by 
his  personal  fancy,  and  we  have  the  proof  of  it 
from  his  own  lips.  Here  is  his  astonishing  state- 
ment. 'Except  for  a  few  short  things  and  single 
stanzas,  his  original  poetry  is  less  satisfactory  than 
his  translations,  for  in  these  the  subject-matter  was 
found  for  him.'  That  is  petulant  enough,  the  pro- 
duct of  personal  feeling,  but  we  may  excuse  it  on 
the  ground  of  his  love  of  his  theory  with  regard 
to  the  subject-matter  of  poetry.      But  when  once 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  SHELLEY  SOCIETY    133 

a  man  gets  on  the  horse  of  prejudice  it  runs 
away  with  him,  and  he  loses  his  critical  sanity  in 
some  galloping  assertion.  He  is  driven  into  ?n 
exaggeration  which  is  all  the  more  amazing,  inas- 
much as  he  thinks  it  marked  by  excessive  temper- 
ance. This  is,  alas !  the  end  of  what  Arnold  says 
of  Shelley  :  ^  Nay,  I  doubt  whether  his  delightful 
essays  and  letters  will  not  resist  the  wear  and  tear  of 
time  better,  and  finally  come  to  stand  higher,  than 
his  poetry.'  I  do  not  wonder  that  Mr.  Swinburne 
said  of  that  very  strange  and  interesting  phrase, 
that  no  critical  reputation,  not  even  the  highest, 
could  bear,  without  ruin,  to  make  a  few  more  judg- 
ments of  that  kind.  At  any  rate,  it  frees  us  from 
being  much  troubled  by  the  sentence  pronounced  by 
Mr.  Arnold  upon  Shelley.  On  this  point  he  has  him- 
self proved  his  own  incapacity  to  show  us  any  light. 
I  have  said  these  things  in  general  about  Shelley 
because  this  is  a  public  lecture,  and  if  one  can  clear 
away  a  public  accusation  against  a  poet  it  is  always 
well.  But  in  the  more  private  work  which  this 
Shelley  Society  proposes  to  do,  such  general  state- 
ments will  not  be  necessary.  What  will  be  necessary 
from  those  who  are  convinced  of  Shelley's  greatness 
will  be  temperance  and  distinctiveness  in  praise. 
No  good  is  done  to  Shelley,  no  good  is  done  to  the 
love  of  poetry  in  men,  no  desire  to  read  a  poet  is 
encouraged,  by  assertions  which  run  into  excess.  It 
is  as  bad,  as  prejudiced,  as  wild,  to  say  that  he  is  the 
greatest  poet  since  Shakespeare,  or  that  he  is  greater 
than  Wordsworth,  without  making  any  distinctions, 


134  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

as  It  is  to  say  that  his  letters  will  stand  higher  than 
his  poetry.  Both  phrases  are  marked  by  a  want 
of  sanity  of  judgment.  It  is  only  after  weighing 
the  whole  of  Shelley's  work,  after  long  considera- 
tion of  the  dijfferences  between  his  character  and 
aims  and  those  of  his  contemporaries,  of  the  several 
ranges  of  their  work,  that  any  critic  should  presume 
to  say  in  what  relation  to  other  poets,  and  on  what 
an  eminence,  Shelley  should  be  placed.  General 
praise  is  a  mistake.  Criticism  does  not  consist  in  a 
number  of  adjectives,  in  a  number  of  metaphors,  or 
in  a  number  of  hazarded  phrases.  When  it  seeks 
to  find  out  faults,  I  never  think  it  worth  much,  but 
if  it  is  done  at  all,  it  ought  to  be  done  well,  and 
above  all  in  a  spirit  of  meekness,  considering  our- 
selves lest  we  should  also  be  tempted  to  write. 

I  also  recommend  to  the  Shelley  Society  not  to 
exalt  their  poet  by  attacking  other  poets.  Perhaps 
you  will  say  I  have  myself  done  this,  and  have 
attacked  Byron.  No,  were  I  to  write  of  him,  I 
should  not  fail  to  express  my  honour  for  the  work 
he  did,  and  for  the  power  with  which  it  was  done. 
I  have  only  spoken  of  Byron  in  this  fashion  because 
Shelley  had  been  unjustly  depreciated  in  order  to 
exalt  Byron. 

This  is  the  first  advice  I  presume  to  give  to  the 
Shelley  Society.  Let  praise  be  temperate  and  dis- 
tinctive ;  else  you  will  repel  and  not  attract  members 
to  your  ranks.  The  rest  which  I  have  to  say  is  on 
the  subjects  which  I  should  like  to  suggest  to  the 
members  of  this  Society. 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  SHELLEY  SOCIETY    135 

First,  there  is  the  comparison  of  Shelley's  opinions 
on  religious  and  social  topics  as  stated  in  his  prose 
with  the  embodiment  of  the  same  opinions  in  his 
poetry.  The  contrast  itself  is  curious.  Shelley's 
views  on  these  matters  are  put  forward  in  prose, 
save  when  the  prose  is  deliberately  made  poetic  as  in 
the  fragment  of  The  Coliseum^  in  the  quietest,  coolest, 
most  balanced  manner,  and  with  all  the  strictness  of 
logic  of  which  he  was  capable.  He  reasons  in  prose 
on  the  existence  of  a  great  Cause,  and  of  what  sort 
that  Cause  is  ;  on  the  for  and  against  of  immortality ; 
on  the  evils  of  society,  on  the  method  to  overcome 
them  ;  on  the  hopes  of  man — with  as  great  temper- 
ance both  of  argument  and  metaphor  as  if  he  were 
Stuart  Mill.  But  when  the  same  subjects  are  trans- 
ferred to  his  poetry,  he  soars  with  them  into  the 
upper  sky,  and  they  become  children  of  the  lightning 
and  the  sun.  But  he  has  always  their  prose  founda- 
tion in  his  own  mind. 

Then  he  had  a  way  with  him,  when  writing 
poetry,  of  becoming  more  impassionated  than  other 
poets  around  his  subject.  All  that  there  was  in  it  of 
hope,  all  that  in  the  past  it  had  given  of  grandeur 
to  the  mind  of  man,  and  of  impulse  to  human  work, 
added  itself  to  his  own  passion,  and  he  was  borne  far 
beyond  the  balanced  statements  of  his  prose.  It 
would  be  well  worth  while  to  make  these  compari- 
sons, and  to  study  this  manner  in  the  man. 

Then,  we  ought  to  collect  all  the  prose  fragments 
he  wrote  on  love,  and  compare  them  with  his  poetry 
on  this  subject  ;  I  do  not  mean  with  the  love  lyrics, 


136  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

but  with  the  poems  on  the  idea  of  love.  No  one 
can  understand  Alastor^  Prince  Athanase^  Epipsychi- 
dioHy  and  many  of  the  shorter  pieces,  who  does  not 
know  the  Platonic  idea  of  love,  and  the  form  which 
Petrarch  gave  that  idea,  a  form  which  profoundly- 
influenced  Elizabethan  poetry.  Yet  even  then,  those 
who  wish  to  penetrate  into  Shelley's  realm  of  ideal 
love  will  have  to  isolate  and  separate  the  new  element 
which  Shelley,  in  his  leavening  individuality,  added 
to  the  Platonic  conception.  This  would  be  well 
worth  doing,  and  it  cannot  be  done  without  the  help 
of  the  prose  writings  on  this  subject,  such  as  Una 
Favolay  The  Coliseum^  and  the  short  essay.  On  Love. 
Then  again,  there  is  his  theory  of  a  spiritual 
universe,  the  special  turn  of  which  by  Shelley  is 
interesting  from  the  personal  point  of  view,  and 
which  in  itself  requires  to  be  clearly  stated,  in  order 
to  understand  not  only  the  expressions  used  in 
describing  nature,  but  also  many  of  the  poems  which 
refer  to  death,  and  the  kind  of  life  which  he 
frequently  conceives  for  himself  after  death,  or  for 
his  friends.  I  dare  say  many  will  remember  (to 
give  an  example)  the  lines  on  the  death  of  his  son, 
and  the  closing  stanzas  of  the  Sensitive  Plant.  As 
to  the  natural  descriptions,  and  the  songs  about  the 
universe  and  even  the  personages  themselves  in  the 
Prometheus^  there  can  be  no  full  delight  taken  in 
these  till  we  have  grasped  Shelley's  conception  of  a 
living  universe,  the  moving  spirit  of  which  was 
Love.  There  are  many  phrases  in  the  prose  works 
which  would  illustrate  and  define  this  conception. 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  SHELLEY  SOCIETY     137 

Once  more,  there  are  many  remarkable  descrip- 
tions of  natural  scenery  in  his  letters  and  his 
diaries.  These  have  been  written  with  his  eye  on 
the  subject,  and  many  at  the  very  place,  or  on 
the  same  day  as  that  on  which  the  things  described 
were  seen.  His  memory,  like  Turner's,  retained 
them,  and  he  used  them  in  his  poetry.  It  would 
be  well  to  collate  and  compare  the  passages  in  his 
poems  which  have  been  directly  taken  from  scenes 
he  has  thus  written  down  in  his  prose.  And 
the  way  he  has  heightened  and  cofnposed  all  the 
detail  that  he  saw  into  a  picture,  while  retaining 
truth  to  natural  fact;  and  has  woven  the  natural 
scenery  in  and  out  with  the  human  passions  of 
which  he  writes — as  in  the  valley  walk  in  Alastor—is 
a  matter  of  very  pleasant  and  useful  study. 

And  now  to  close  this  address.  I  hope  I  have 
not  been  carried  away,  in  defending  Shelley,  into 
excessive  praise  of  him.  He  has  his  own  high 
place,  one  of  the  great  singers,  and  crowned  with 
his  own  crown,  but  he  neither  sits  alone  above  the 
rest  of  the  solemn  choir  of  poets,  nor  does  he  even 
sit  on  a  level  with  others  whose  range  is  greater, 
who  have  presented  to  us  in  their  poems  a  closer 
image  of  human  life  and  of  the  universe,  imagina- 
tively expressed  with  a  passionate  desire  to  penetrate 
to  the  truth  of  them. 

He  is  the  poet  of  certain  distinct  human  ideas 
and  of  their  corresponding  emotions,  and  these  ideas 
are  not  many  ;  but  within  their  several  realms  his 
work   has    extraordinary  intensity,    subtle    beauty, 


138  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

passionate  impulse,  and  creative  power.  That 
work,  though  its  substance  is  grave  and  weighty, 
is  often  too  idealised  into  a  world  of  woven  dreams. 
Substances  were  thinned  out  into  shadowy  expressions 
of  them,  or  seemed  to  disappear  in  a  multitude  of 
fancies  added  to  them  ;  but  the  substantial  truths 
were  always  steadfast  behind  the  scaffolding  or  the 
ornament.  It  was  his  way  to  do  this.  It  was  not 
a  weakness  of  capacity,  but  an  inability  to  check  the 
outpouring  of  his  thought.  The  substance  of  truth 
is  clear  in  the  Prometheus  Unbound^  but  the  expres- 
sion of  it  is  so  multitudinous  with  imagery  that 
while  we  wonder  and  rejoice  in  it,  we  sometimes 
wish  our  amazement  were  less,  and  our  joy  not  so 
overwhelming.  On  the  other  hand,  in  his  personal 
poetry  Shelley  wrote  in  the  unsubstantial  faery  land 
in  which  at  least  half  of  his  inner  life  was  passed. 
The  immaterial  world  was  then  his  natural  world, 
not  only  fancifully  but  philosophically.  When  he 
lived  with  nature,  when  he  spoke  of  love,  when  he 
voyaged  with  metaphysical  ideas,  he  breathed  with 
ease  that  supersensuous  air.  The  dreams  he  saw 
were  inspired  by  his  own  witch  of  Atlas. 

On  a  poet's  lips  I  slept 

Dreaming  like  a  love-adept 

In  the  sound  his  breathing  kept ; 

Nor  seeks  nor  finds  he  mortal  blisses, 

But  feeds  on  the  aerial  kisses 

Of  shapes  that  haunt  thought's  wildernesses. 

He  will  watch  from  dawn  to  gloom 

The  lake-reflected  sun  illume 

The  yellow  bees  in  the  ivy-bloom, 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  SHELLEY  SOCIETY     139 

Nor  heed  nor  see  what  things  they  be ; 
But  from  these  create  he  can 
Forms  more  real  than  living  man, 
Nurslings  of  immortality  ! 
One  of  these  awakened  me, 
And  I  sped  to  succour  thee. 

It  is  foolish  to  say  that  these  dreams  and  these 
subtle  films  of  visionary  thought  are  not  subjects 
for  poetry.  They  form  a  great  part  of  our  life. 
Even  Wordsworth  knew  well  what  they  were. 

And  I  can  listen  to  thee  yet ; 
Can  lie  upon  the  plain 
And  listen,  till  I  do  beget 
That  golden  time  again. 

O  blessed  bird !   the  earth  we  pace 
Again  appears  to  be 
An  unsubstantial,  fairy  place 
That  is  fit  home  for  thee. 

And  much  of  the  pure  passion  of  life  must  have 
left  us  when  we  can  no  more  read  with  pleasure  the 
lyrics  in  which  Shelley  clothed  the  shapes  that  haunted 
the  wildernesses  of  his  thought. 

It  might  perhaps  have  been  better — supposing 
that  we  could  have  got  it  without  spoiling  the  man 
and  his  art — if  Shelley  had  considered  oftener,  in  his 
poetry  concerning  human  matters,  the  '  nest  upon  the 
dewy  ground/  and  not  have  so  constantly  sung  high 
up  in  the  sky  in  a  '  privacy  of  glorious  light/  Yet, 
there  are  many  whom  this  pleases  and  whom  it 
impels.  The  heart  which  in  spring  loves  to  listen 
to  the  lark  lost  to  sight,  better  than  it  does  to  the 
thrush   singing   of  the   loves  of  earth  and  of  its 


I40  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

home  upon  the  beech  in  the  wood,  is  pleased  with 
Shelley  more  than  with  Wordsworth,  and  gains  from 
him  what  it  does  not  gain  from  Wordsworth.  And 
those  who  like  the  thrush  best  have  no  right  to 
abuse  those  who  love  that  song  of  the  lark  which, 
as  it  mounts  higher,  fades  away.  It  also  is  a  song 
in  the  soul  of  man. 

Again,  it  may  be  that  they  who  cry  down  Shelley 
have  lost  the  pleasure  of  looking  for  a  golden  year, 
the  hope  of  the  redemption  of  man  ;  and  in  that 
loss  have  ceased  to  feel  the  divine  heat  of  anger  with 
the  evils  that  beset  and  oppress  mankind.  They 
are  content  to  take  the  world  as  it  comes,  and  to 
meet  its  troubles  day  by  day.  These  have  their 
place  and  do  their  work.  But  they  ought  to 
tolerate  those  who  are  like  Shelley,  uncontent, 
and  whose  uncontent  makes  them  look  forward 
with  unconquered  hope  to  a  new  world,  unsub- 
stantial as  yet  save  to  the  eye  of  faith ;  men  who 
find  in  Shelley  the  expression  of  their  indignation, 
of  their  ideal,  and  of  the  kingdom  of  the  great 
Three  who  abide  for  man,  Faith,  Hope,  and 
Love.  And  if  the  song  be  as  yet  called  Utopian, 
if  it  be  clothed  in  visions  like  those  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse, it  does  not  follow  that  it  has  not  a  living 
and  a  serious  subject-matter.  It  is  a  subject-matter 
which  few  great  poets  have  not  sustained  and 
adorned.  It  engaged  the  ancient  prophets,  it 
belonged  to  Jesus  Christ,  it  was  sung  by  Virgil. 
Neither  Dante  nor  Milton  disdained  the  thoughts 
and  the  emotions  of  the  restitution  of  all  things. 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  SHELLEY  SOCIETY     141 

For  myself,  I  wish  that  subject-matter  were 
always  before  the  hopes  and  in  the  hearts  of  men. 
I  wish  the  faith  in  it  were  as  strong  in  the  lives  of 
present  men  as  it  was  in  the  life  of  Shelley.  The 
life  of  the  poor  would  then  be  brighter,  and  their 
endurance  of  the  iniquity  of  society  easier.  Hope 
would  create  from  its  own  wreck  the  thing  it  con- 
templates.^ A  more  spiritual  life  would  balance 
our  materialism.  The  making  of  wealth  and  com- 
fort would  be  less  the  religion  of  England.  The 
idleness  and  worldliness  of  man  would  be  more 
shamed  into  work  and  into  simplicity.  It  is  the 
nature  of  a  great  faith  and  hope  to  make  life 
simple.  Philosophy  would  be  less  narrow,  science 
less  insolent,  scepticism  less  vain,  and  that  opinion 
— the  ultimate  result  of  having  neither  faith  nor 
hope  nor  love — *  that  this  world  is  the  worst  pos- 
sible world,'  cease  to  be  the  last  refuge  and  the  last 
repose  for  the  heart  of  man. 

Were  society  to  alter,  as  it  must  soon  alter  or 
disintegrate,  away  from  this  condition,  and  live 
more  in  the  hopes,  and  with  the  aims,  and  in  the 
simple  life  of  Shelley  ;  and  along  with  these  possess 
also  his  sanity  of  view,  it  would  then  understand 
how  curiously  foolish  it  is  to  call  him  ^  a  beautiful, 
but  ineffectual  angel,  beating  in  the  void  his  luminous 
wings  in  vain.'  Towards  that  social  change  his 
work  in  poetry  concerning  man  is  one  element  of 
power  ;  and  it  moves  far  more  strongly  than  is 
believed  among  the  numerous  body  in  the  '  working 
classes  '  who  think  and  feel  concerning  the  condition 


142  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

of  humanity.  It  is  not  ineiFectual.  There  are  those, 
and  too  many  of  them  sometimes  for  our  patience, 
who  receive  Shelley  and  extol  him  as  an  exquisite 
lyrist,  but  who,  thinking  only  of  their  secluded  and 
exclusive  palace  of  art,  have  no  sympathy  with  the 
ideal  hopes  for  man  which  Shelley  cherished,  and 
who,  in  the  midst  of  their  formulated  and  fading 
culture  whose  main  characteristics  are  the  absence 
of  a  social  conscience  and  the  absence  of  any  love  of 
man,  imagine  that  they  represent  the  leading  thoughts 
and  the  fine  spirit  of  humanity.  There  are  others, 
not  quite  so  conceited  or  so  futile  as  those  folk,  who 
think  that  the  Welt-Geist  vaoYts  most  vividly,  most 
effectually,  in  the  educated  part  of  society.  I  do 
not  think  that  their  opinion  is  true  ;  nor  indeed 
has  history  testified  to  the  truth  of  that  opinion, 
but  to  the  very  contrary.  The  life  of  the  World- 
Spirit,  as  it  energises  now  in  England,  is  most 
vivid  in  the  ideas,  hopes,  dreams,  and  passionate 
feelings  which,  unformed,  are  yet  taking  form  in 
the  poor,  the  overworked,  the  oppressed  ;  in  the 
rude  brains,  and  the  emotional  thoughts  of  the 
steadfast,  struggling  workers  of  this  country — those 
who  never  despair  though  they  have  every  reason 
to  despair,  who  fight  on  against  overwhelming  odds, 
and  die  content  because  they  believe  in  the  coming 
into  reality  of  their  ideal ;  many  of  whom  have 
not  where  to  lay  their  head,  who  are  despised  and 
rejected  of  men,  and  acquainted  with  grief,  those  of 
whom  it  may  be  said — ^  How  know  these  men 
letters,  having  never  learned } '       These,  as  they 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  SHELLEY  SOCIETY     143 

slowly  weave  their  conceptions  into  form,  love 
Shelley  and  find  in  him  their  poet,  and  perhaps  their 
priest.  If  men  wish  to  be  in  the  forefront  of  the 
future,  to  live  in  the  ideas  which  will,  a  century 
hence,  rule  the  world,  hi  them  live  among  the 
men  who  are  indignant,  and  who  hope,  with  Shelley  ; 
who  have  his  faith,  who  hear  the  trumpet  of  a 
prophecy,  and  whose  cry  day  and  night  is  this  : 

O  Wind, 
If  Winter  comes,  can  Spring  be  far  behind  ? 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY 

There  have  been  few  men  who  were  more  swiftly 
led  away  by  impulse    than   Shelley.     He  was  im- 
pelled from  within  by  his  own  thoughts,  and  they 
immediately  swept    him   away   into   the    emotions 
which  belonged  to  them  ;  and  in  these  emotions  he ) 
all  but  forgot  the  thoughts  from  which  they  took  ( 
their  rise.     This  is  the  genesis  of  a  number  of  his    > 
lyrics,  and  of  a  number  of  the  errors  he  made  in 
life. 

He  was  also  impelled  from  without  by  impressions 
made  on  him  by  the  loveliness  of  nature,  or  by  the 
eviljo£^e_g^ood  of  man  ;  and  these  impressions 
were  at  once  hurried  by  his  temperament  into  an 
extremity  of  feeling  which  was  translated,  white-hot, 
into  poetry  which  for  the  most  part  was  lyrical,  or 
verged  on  the  lyrical.  It  is  in  the  lyrical  region 
that  the  poetry  was  written  which  gives  him  a  speciaL 
place  among  the  masters. 

If  we  think  of  the  longer  poems,  we  may  say 
that  the  Prometheus  Unbound  is  more  of  a  Titanic 
jyric  than  a  drama ;  half  of  it  might  be  called  a 
congeries  of  lyrics.  The  Witch  of  Atlas^  Adonais^ 
are  not  lyrics,  but  they  share  in  the  nature  of  a 

U4  ^ 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  145 

lyric.  Alastor^  beyond  the  descriptions  of  nature 
which  are  fitted,  as  it  were  by  an  afterthought,  to  the 
moods  of  the  wandering  poet,  is  lyrical  in  its  unity  of 
emotion,  in  that  high  mournful  note  which  slowly 
rises,  then  races  upwards,  culminates  and  falls. 
Hellas  is  worth  little  as  long  as  it  tries  to  be  dramatic, 
but  pure  lyrics  burst  out  of  it  like  fountains.  Ept- 
psychidion  is  not  a  lyric,  but  is  like  a  lyric  expanded 
into  a  poem.  Its  emotion  is  one  ;  its  subject  is 
one  ;  and  its  intensity  of  expression  is  equal  to  its 
emotion.  It,  too,  but  much  more  passionately  than 
Alastor^  rises,  rushes  on,  culminates,  falls  and  dies 
breathless  with  its  own  passion,  exactly  like  a  lyric. 
"Hhe  Cenci  stands  alone.  It  is  pure  drama.  In  it 
Shelley  has  carefully,  for  the  sake  of  the  dramatic 
ideal,  repressed,  subdued  his  impetuous  tendency  to 
lyrical  expression.  As  to  the  'Triumph  of  Life^  no 
one  can  say  what  that  poem  would  have  become. 

The  other  long  poems — the  social  and  contro- 
versial poems — ^ueen  Mah^  The  Revolt  of  Islam^ 
Rosalind  and  Helen^  are  broken,  unequal,  disunited 
work;  and  Julian  and  Maddalo^  though  praise  has 
been  lavished  on  it,  has  always  seemed  to  me  un- 
fortunately prosaic.  They  have  splendid  passages, 
where  the  poetic  emotion  has  either  mastered  the 
ill-composed  form  in  which  the  poem  is  cast,  or  where 
the  form  is  wholly  abandoned,  but  these  passages  are 
too  ardent  and  lovely  for  the  rest  of  the  poem.  They 
almost  annihilate  the  rest  of  the  poem.  They  alone 
remain  on  the  mind.  They  are  of  Shelley's  inmost 
nature,  and  I  hear,  far  oiF,  the  lyrical  cry  in  them. 


146  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

This  Is  one  half  of  his  poetry,  and  with  this  we 
have  nothing  more  to  do.  The  other  half  is,  with 
a  few  exceptions,  made  up  of  pure  lyrics  ;  and  I  will 
dwell  on  some  of  their  characteristics  on  which  I 
have  not  already  elsewhere  written. 

The  lyric  proper  is  the  product  of  a  swift,  momen- 
tary, and  passionate  impulse,  coming  from  without 
for  the  most  part,  suddenly  awaking  the  poet,  as  it 
were  out  of  a  dream,  into  vivid  life,  seizing  upon 
him,  and  setting  him  on  fire  with  its  grasp,  until  he 
believes  it  is  his  very  self  which  speaks — replacing, 
that  is,  the  poet's  own  life  by  the  life  of  the  impulse, 
until  the  impulse  has  absorbed  in  him  everything 
else  but  itself  ;  and  bringing  with  it  the  form  it  has 
to  take,  so  that  the  whole  poem  leaps  into  being 
before  it  is  written  down.  When  a  lyric  rises  into 
form  in  a  great  poet,  it  is  always  in  fire  that  it  rises. 
But  the  temperament  of  the  poet  conditions  the 
mode  of  the  fire.  It  is  for  the  most  part  a  short- 
lived fire,  but  it  burns  more  quietly  in  some,  as  in 
Wordsworth  ;  more  hotly  in  others,  as  in  Byron  ; 
with  every  kind  of  intensity  in  various  poets.  In 
Shelley  it  burns  slowly  for  a^time,- then_  flares  to 
heaven  m  "a  rush  of  flame,  then  sinks  and  dies 
as  swiftly  as  it  flamed.  It  is  as  momentary  as  a 
meteor  in  him,  and  its  substance  is  vaporised  by  its 
own  heat. 

^  As  such  it  will  have  a  limijted  but  an  unbroken 
unity.  One  emotion  only,  one  thought  only,  will 
dominate  it,  though  naturally  it  will  have  changes  ; 
varied    representations    of    this   one    thing,    many 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  147 

branches  from  one  root,  gradations  of  colour  in 
the  same  water,  different  tones  in  the  one  voice. 
Shelley  is  supreme  in  changes  wrought  into  one 
theme. 

Having  this  single-eyed  unity,  the  lyric  proper 
will  be  simple  in  form  and  ornament.  Many  lyric 
poets  lose  the  natural  simplicity  of  the  lyric  by 
over-ornament.  They  make  their  poem  flamboyant ; 
adorn  it  from  the  outside,  like  some  Renaissance 
palaces,  with  garlands  of  thoughts  and  emotions 
which  have  no  clear  relation  to  the  subject,  and 
which  destroy  its  proportion.  The  reason  of  that 
is  that  the  original  impulse  has  either  not  been 
intense  enough,  or  the  fire  of  emotion  not  hot 
enough,  or  that  as  he  writes  the  poet  has  grown 
chill.  Whence  passion  is  intense  enough,  it  burns 
up  the  needless,  it  attains  simplicity.  There  is  no- 
thing so  simple  intETworld  as  puce  passion  ;  not 
only  of  love,  but  of  hate  and  hope  and  melancholy, 
despair  and  jealousy  and  joy.  Any  one  of  these, 
at  white  heat,  becomes  simple.  The  too-much, 
either  in  ornament  or  thought,  cannot  live  in  passion. 
It  rejects  as  it  moves  all  that  is  weak  or  useless. 

Shelley  comes  nearer  to  the  fiery,  swift^et  simple 
form  of  theTyric  than  any  modern  poet.  He  is 
rarely  led  away  into  ornament  which  overweights 
his  poem,  but  he  sometimes  Is.  For  example,  I 
wish  in  the  ode  To  a  Skylark  all  these  comparisons 
of  the  lark's  song  to  a  poet  hidden  In  the  light  of 
thought,  to  a  high-born  maiden  in  a  palace  tower, 
to  a  glow-worm  golden  in  a  dell  of  dew,  to  a  rose 


148  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

embowered  in  its  leaves,  were  blown  away  to  all  the 
winds,  or  at  least  embodied  in  another  lyric  where 
they  might  fit  the  single  passion  of  the  theme.  They 
are  flamboyant,  and  every  one,  instead  of  bringing  us 
closer  to  the  lark  in  the  heavens,  separates  us  from 
his  singing.  But,  on  the  whole,  no  one  except 
Burns  among  the  modern  poets  is  nearer  than 
Shelley  to  the  pure  lyric — that  thing  so  rare  and 
beautiful  that  all  the  world  when  it  hears  its  cry 
is  hushed  in  delight. 

Perhaps  it  was  his  life  in  Italy  which  ministered 
to  this  power.  In  England,  nature  and  the  passionate 
moments  of  human  feeling  slowly  make  their  way 
into  the  heart,  and  though  the  climax  of  them  is 
swift,  shortlived,  and  simple  in  the  lyrics  of  the 
great  poets,  yet  the  original  movement  has  not  been 
rushing,  and  the  fulness  of  the  passionate  impulse  is 
not  always  reached.  But  in  Italy,  in  the  warm  and 
living  air  both  of  nature  and  man,  impulses  come  in 
a  flashing  light  and  glow,  and  while  they  last  pulsate 
like  the  colour-changing  lightning  of  Italian  nights. 
Shelley  was  Italian  in  this,  and  his  lyrics  have  the 
rush  and  impetuosity  of  the  south. 

Then,  who  that  has  an  ear  for  rhythm  is  not 
delighted  with  the  musical  changes  of  his  lyrics? 
Every  lyric  ought  to  bring  with  it  its  isolated 
music,  and  to  be  alone  in  that,  but  the  varied 
changes  of  the  one  emotion,  the  one  theme,  should 
have  each  its  own  subtle  and  natural  expression.  In 
these  and  the  full  music  of  the  whole  poem,  Shelley's 
excellence  is  as  easy  as  it  is  instinctive — nay,  in  its 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  149 

instinctiveness,  in  Its  Inevitable  vibration  of  rhythm 
in  harmony  with  the  vibration  of  emotion^  is  the 
chief  loveliness  of  Shelley's  lyrical  music. 

These  are  general  considerations  of  Shelley's 
lyric  work.  It  is  time  to  turn  to  the  particulars 
in  it  which  distinguish  it  from  the  lyric  work  of 
other  poets. 

Of  what  kind,  we  ask,  were  his  lyrics  of  nature  ? 
His  impassioned  treatment  of  nature  in  his  short 
poems  varied  according  to  the  mood  he  was  in. 
Sometimes  he  saw  nature  as  one  and  indivisible  ;  as 
a  spiritual  being  who  through  all  her  forms,  while  she 
remained  inconceivable  love  and  unity,  '  spreads  un- 
divided, operates  unspent ' — and  the  Hymn  to  Asia 
— '  Life  of  Life,  thy  lips  enkindle ' — is  an  example 
of  this  mood  with  nature^  If  a  great  physicist, 
having  for  many  days  meditated  on  the  myriad 
life  in  nature,  upbuilding  itself,  from  its  appa- 
rently inorganic  movement  in  matter  into  worlds 
out  of  mists  of  fire,  to  its  inconceivably  various 
vegetable,  animal,  and  human  organisms  arising  out 
of  a  single  cell ;  and  having  thus  meditated,  should 
then  pass  on  in  his  thought  to  be  momentarily 
conscious  of  himself  as  the  centre  of  this  im- 
measurable life  of  the  universe  and  of  its  passionate 
will  to  live — if  then  he  should  fall  asleep,  and 
passing  in  a  dream  from  the  scientific  into  the 
imaginative  world,  should  realise  as  a  personality 
the  source  of  this  universal  life,  and  realise  it  as 
feminine — the  Alma  Venus,  the  warm    generative 


150  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

principle — he  would  in  his  dream  be  impelled  to 
make  for  her  exactly  the  song  that  Shelley  made 
for  Asia.  It  is  a  wonderful  thing.  The  soul,  the 
passion  of  the  imaginative  physicist  is  in  it. 

That  is  one  form  in  which  Shelley's  lyric  con- 
templation of  nature  appeared.  There  are  other 
lyrics  which  look  on  nature,  not  as  one  Being,  but 
as  many  beings  ;  in  which  every  natural  object  or 
phenomenon  has  its  own  life,  and  acts  and  thinks 
and  plays  like  a  man  or  a  child,  without  any  con- 
science or  self-consciousness  ;  in  which  nature,  that 
is,  is  seen  as  the  men  of  the  mythical  periods  saw 
her. 

In  the  ancient  myths  the  doings  of  nature,  and 
especially  of  the  sky,  are  impersonated  and  described 
as  the  doings  of  men  or  animals.  The  dawn  is  said 
to  fly  before  the  rising  sun.  The  summer-god 
contends  with  and  conquers  the  winter  and  is  con- 
quered in  turn  by  the  winter  giants.  The  rays  of 
the  sun  are  the  arrows  of  the  sun-god.  The  great 
elongated  globes  of  the  rain-cloud  hanging  down 
with  their  weight  of  water  are  the  distended  udders 
of  the  cows  of  Indra.  Such  mythical  representations 
have  passed  into  all  our  poetry,  even  into  our  daily 
speech.  But  they  exist  in  it  chiefly  in  the  form  of 
adjectives,  or  in  certain  well-known  images  which 
science  has  never  induced  us  to  surrender.  But  we 
make  no  new  myths.  These  impersonations  of  the 
doings  of  nature  live  no  longer  in  the  faith  of 
reason.  It  is  therefore  with  some  wonder  and 
much  pleasure  that  in  Shelley  we  find  ourselves  with 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  151 

a  poet  who  was  so  detached  from  both  the  present 
and  the  past  as  to  be  frequently  in  the  very  position 
of  mind  in  which  an  early  Aryan  thought ;  and 
therefore  to  be  able  to  make  new  nature-myths 
of  his  own  ;  to  feel  nature,  and  to  see  her  doings  as 
a  child  who  belonged  to  the  childhood  of  the  world. 
Goethe  now  and  then  fixed  himself  in  that  position, 
and  made  a  myth  or  two,  but  he  did  it  consciously 
\  and  even  laboriously.     Shelley  did  it  quite  naturally,. 

\  exactly  as  a  man  a  hundred  thousand  years  ago  might 
have  done  it.  The  only  difference,  a  difference  he 
could  not  help,  was  in  the  artistic  shape  of  the  thing 
done.  This  is  a  thing  extraordinarily  rare;  it  is 
even  rare  in  Shelley  himself.  Pure  specimens  of  it 
would  occur  oftener  if  Shelley  had  not  also  had  a 

J  metaphysical  theory  of  the  universe  which  led  him  to 
say  that  the  whole  world  was  the  apparent  form  of 
supreme  Love  and  Thought ;  led  him,  that  is,  to 
express  and  think  that  theory  at  intervals,  for  he 
was  far  too  changing  to  hold  any  theory  of  that 
kind  for  long.  When  he  felt  it,  he  could  not  of 
course  make  a  nature-myth.  Any  kind  of  pantheism 
excludes  the  imagery  of  the  occurrences  of  nature  by 
the  action  of  persons  or  animals.  But  when  Shelley 
felt  especially  the  child  and  was  bored  by  his  meta- 
physic,  he  being  of  the  momentary  momentary,  and 
delighted  with  a  change  of  view,  and  pleased  like  a 
Greek  to  give  life  to  everything,  became  almost  as 
young  as  the  earlier  world,  and  made  new  nature- 
myths,  like  the  young  heathen  that  he  was.  We 
have  them,  not  quite  simple,  not  fully  shaped,  in 


152  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

separate  lines.  Here  is  an  early  and  imperfect 
example  : 

Twilight,  ascending  slowly  from  the  east, 
^-^ '  Entwined  in  duskier  wreaths  her  braided  locks 

JLhC      On  the  fair  front  and  radiant  eyes  of  day. 

That  has  not  the  inevitable  childishness  of  a  nature- 
myth,  it  is  too  elaborate,  nor  is  it  alive  enough  or 
direct  enough. 
Here  if  another  : 

Old  winter  has  gone 

In  his  weakness  back  to  the  mountains  hoar, 

and  another  poem  takes  up  again  that  winter  and 
summer  myth  which  we  meet  everywhere  ;  but  that 
is  not  a  new  myth,  not  of  his  own  making.  He 
creates  the  Winter  with  a  northern  vigour  in  The 
Sensitive  Plant.  Thor  himself  would  not  have  dis- 
dained to  meet  this  Frost-Giant  who  tears  the 
cataracts  from  the  hills  and  hangs  them  to  his  girdle. 
Then  there  is  the  poem  about  the  Apennine.  It  is  a 
mountain  dim  and  grey  in  the  daylight,  but  at  night, 
when  the  storm  comes,  it  rises  from  its  place  and 
walks  abroad.  There  is  a  myth  half  made.  At  night 
it  is  a  true  being,  but  Shelley's  modern  consciousness 
denies  the  life  of  the  mountain  by  day.  Then  there 
is  the  impersonation  in  the  Prometheus  of  the  earth 
and  of  the  moon.  The  earth,  asleep  in  the  midst 
of  a  whirling  sphere  of  crystal,  itself  built  up  of  ttn 
thousand  orbs  involving  and  involved  ;  the  descrip- 
tion of  what  is  seen  within  the  sphere,  and  what  the 
beams  which  shoot  from  the  stars  on  the  brow  of 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  153 

the  earth  reveal  of  all  the  secrets  of  the  earth — is 
not  mythical,  but  physical  and  metaphysical  imagina- 
tion. But  the  image  of  the  moon  is  nature-myth ; 
every  touch  is  made  out  of  the  doings  of  nature. 
Within  the  chariot 

sits  a  wingM  infant,  white 
Its  countenance,  like  the  whiteness  of  bright  snow, 
Its  plumes  are  as  feathers  of  sunny  frost. 
Its  limbs  gleam  white,  through  the  wind-flowing  folds 
Of  its  white  robe,  woof  of  ethereal  pearl. 
Its  hair  is  white,  the  brightness  of  white  light 
Scattered  in  strings ;  yet  its  two  eyes  are  heavens 
Of  liquid  darkness,  which  the  Deity 
Within  seems  pouring,  as  a  storm  is  poured 
From  jaggM  clouds,  out  of  their  arrowy  lashes. 
Tempering  the  cold  and  radiant  air  around. 
With  fire  that  is  not  brightness ;  in  its  hand 
It  sways  a  quivering  moonbeam,  from  whose  point 
A  guiding  power  directs  the  chariot's  prow 
Over  its  wheeled  clouds,  which  as  they  roll 
Over  the  grass,  and  flowers,  and  waves,  wake  sounds, 
Sweet  as  a  singing  rain  of  silver  dew. 

This  might  be  written  of  the  moon-god  in  India. 

Still,  in  this  there  are  so  many  comparisons,  Mike 
this,  like  that,'  that  we  see  the  poet  was  not  quite 
unconscious  of  what  he  was  doing,  as  an  early  man 
would  have  been,  who  would  have  said  more  directly 
what  he  thought.  When  we  get  to  a  line  like  this, 
however,  we  get  almost  to  the  early  directness. 
The  clouds  are  sheep  that  pass  through  the  sky 

Shepherded  by  the  slow  unwilling  wind. 

And  when  we  get  to  this  little  lyric  we  meet  the 


154  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

pure  simple  thing,  and  the  new  thing,  an  actual 
fresh-minded  myth  in  the  nineteenth  century  : 

The  pale  stars  are  gone  ! 
For  the  Sun,  their  swift  shepherd, 
To  their  folds  them  compelling. 
In  the  depths  of  the  dawn. 
Hastes,  in  meteor-eclipsing  array,  and  they  flee 
Beyond  his  blue  dwelling. 
As  fawns  flee  the  leopard. 

The  last  three  lines  disturb  the  image,  but  the  first 
four  are  pure  myth,  and  so  is  this  : 

And  the  young  and  dewy  Dawn 

Bold  as  an  unhunted  fawn 

Up  the  windless  Heaven  is  gone. 

And  among  them — the  most  astonishing  of  all — is 
The  Cloud,  It  is  not  only  a  myth  of  the  Cloud  ; 
the  cloud  is  accompanied  by  a  host  of  other  imper- 
sonations of  nature — the  sanguine  sunrise  with  his 
meteor  eyes,  the  orbM  maiden  of  the  moon,  the 
imprisoned  giant  of  the  thunder,  the  lightning 
which  runs  through  the  sky  to  find  his  love, — all  are 
touched  into  life,  and  yet  there  is  not  one  phrase, 
not  one  adjective  which  is  contradictory  of,  or  which 
does  not  illuminate,  naturaiikct*-'-- 

These  examples  would  not  perhaps  be  enough  to 
prove  my  statement,  were  there  not  so  many  of  the 
half-and-half  myths  of  which  I  have  instanced  one. 
The  Hymn  of  Apollo  is  one  of  these.  The  sleepless 
Hours  watch  the  dreaming  God.  Their  mother,  the 
Gray  Dawn,  warns  them  to  awaken  him  when  the 
Moon  is  gone.     He  rises  and  walks  over  the  moun- 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  155 

tains  and  the  waves,  he  leaves  his  robe  on  the  sea,  his 
footsteps  pave  the  clouds  with  fire,  the  Earth  is  his 
mistress  whom  he  embraces,  he  feeds  the  clouds  and 
flowers  with  their  colours  ;  and  all  the  light  of  the 
universe,  from  the  pure  stars  to  the  lamps  of  earth, 
are  portions  of  his  power  ;  he  stands  on  the  peak 
of  Heaven,  he  wanders  down  with  unwilling  steps 
into  the  clouds  of  even.  All  that  is  pure  nature- 
myth,  and  it  is  not  borrowed.  It  is  fresh  work 
done  freshly  by  this  ancient  youth. 

But  in  the  very  same  poem  we  are  brought 
into  that  later  stage  of  human  thought  when  the 
natural  myth  was  moralised,  when  the  personages 
were  made  gods,  and  the  gods  the  sources  of  morality 
and  the  inventors  of  beauty.  We  are  in  that  world 
when  we  read 

The  sunbeams  are  my  shafts,  with  which  I  kill 
Deceit,  that  loves  the  night  and  fears  the  day  : 
♦  All  men  who  do  or  even  imagine  ill 

Fly  me,  and  from  the  glory  of  my  ray 
Good  minds  and  open  actions  take  new  might, 
Until  diminished  by  the  reign  of  Night. 

So  also,  when  we  come  to  the  last  verse,  and  the 
sun  becomes  the  lord  of  science  and  beauty,  and 
both  are  at  one  in  him  ;  and  he,  feeling  their 
eternal  harmony,  and  that  they  are  harmony,  re- 
joices in  his  own  being  in  the  universe — we  have 
passed  into  that  further  world  where  a  million  myths 
of  nature  which  predicated  a  million  separate  lives 
in  every  one  of  the  million  things  to  which  the 
mythical  imagination  gave  life,  have  become  one  im- 


IS6  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

measurable  life.  Unity  fills  our  imagination  of  the 
Sun-Godhead  instead  of  diversity,  yet  diversity  is  not 
lost,  but  secured.  And  more,  not  only  nature  but 
all  the  work  of  man  is  taken  up  into  the  one, 
universal  life. 

I  am  the  eye  with  which  the  Universe 
Beholds  itself  and  knows  itself  divine ; 

All  harmony  of  instrument  and  verse, 
All  prophecy,  all  medicine  is  mine. 

All  light  of  art  or  nature ;  to  my  song 

Victory  and  praise  in  its  own  right  belong. 

This  lyric  is,  then,  a  concentration  of  two  ages  of 
human  thought  concerning  nature.  Nay,  it  is  a 
short  record  of  the  progress  of  human  thought 
from  the  mythical  to  the  philosophical  conception 
of  nature. 

At  other  times  Shelley  sees  and  describes  things  in 
nature  as  they  are  in  themselves,  as  they  were  before 
myth-making  man  was  born  into  the  universe — and 
as  he  describes,  he  himself  is  wholly  detached  from 
them.  It  is  true,  he  makes  them  alive.  It  is  no  dead 
matter  which  is  working,  but  living  powers,  doing 
the  things  that  please  them  ;  and  we  may  think  that 
Shelley  has  imposed  on  material  things  his  own  life. 
But  that  was  not  his  intention.  He  really  believed 
that  the  cloud  and  the  stream  and  the  flower  and 
the  sea,  even  the  cell,  were  alive,  had  the  will  to  live, 
and  worked  for  this,  and  played  as  they  worked  ; 
and  the  trend  of  the  latest  philosophy  of  the  uni- 
verse is  not  far  apart  from  this  belief  of  his.  At 
any  rate,  he  alone  among  the  poets  could  see  natural 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  157 

things,  and  chose  sometimes  to  see  them,  as  they 
were  in  themselves,  wholly  independent  of  our 
thought  or  feeling  ;  and  he  made  poems  on  this 
vision  of  them.  Not  one  suspicion  of  humanity 
belongs  to  them,  not  one  word  brings  into  them 
a  shred  of  human  feeling.  For  that  reason,  while 
we  admire  them,  we  do  not  love  them,  but  their 
uniqueness  and  their  strangeness  is  astonishing.  Of 
these  poems  ne  Cloud  is  the  most  finished  example. 
I  have  mentioned  it  as  an  instance  of  his  myth- 
making  power.  But  in  that  case  it  ought  to  have 
some  relation  to  humanity,  and  indeed,  when  the 
poem  is  more  fully  considered,  the  personages  in  it 
have  no  such  relation.  They  are  alive  ;  that  is  all 
the  connection  they  have  with  us.  They  are  purely 
elemental.  The  sanguine  sunrise,  the  meteor  moon, 
the  thunder  in  the  caves  of  earth,  the  march  of  the 
clouds  through  the  rainbow  arch,  the  clouds -building 
and  upbuilding  themselves  in  the  air  and  laughing  at 
their  own  tricks — it  may  all  have  occurred,  and  did 
occur,  in  the  Silurian  period.  More  than  half  of  it 
is  even  true  of  the  doings  of  the  Fire-mist  out  of 
which  the  solar  system  grew.  Not  one  phrase  takes 
us  away  from  that  illusion.  There  is  not  a  word  of 
human  interest,  not  even  a  word  which  brings  the 
poet  himself  into  any  relation  with  the  object  de- 
scribed. We  are  not  conscious  of  Shelley  at  all  as 
we  read  The  Cloud, 

This  is  a  power  which,  as  exercised  by  Shelley, 
belongs  to  him  alone  among  the  poets.  There  are 
few  who  can  escape  from  their  own  seif-conscious- 


158  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

ness  or  from  the  overwhelming  consciousness  of 
the  world  of  humanity.      Shelley,  on  the  contrary, 

;  could  strip  himself  clean  of  humanity  and  of  Shelley, 
and  move  among  the  elements  like  one  of  them- 
selves. Hence  there  arises,  as  I  have  said  else- 
where, this  curious  thing,  that  describing  natural 
occurrences  as  if  they  were  the  doings  of  living 
things,  and  describing  them  in  terms  of  the  highest 
imagination,  he  yet,  because  he  has  wholly  got  rid 
of  the  deceiving  mist  of  human  emotion  and  thought 
concerning  them,  describes  them  with  an  accuracy 
which  we  might  almost  call  scientific.      "The  Cloud 

,  might  be  lectured  upon  by  a  meteorologist.  So 
j  might  this  little  passage  describing  the  fate  of  a 
globe  of  dew,  from  dawn  to  sunset. 

As  the  dissolving  warrnth  of  dawn  may  fold 
A  half  unfrozen  dew-globe,  green  and  gold, 
And  crystalline,  till  it  becomes  a  winged  mist 
And  wanders  up  the  vault  of  the  blue  day. 
Outlives  the  noon,  and  on  the  sun's  last  ray 
Hangs  o'er  the  sea,  a  fleece  of  fire  and  amethyst. 

That  is  pure  science  in  lovely  verse.  But  Shelley 
elsewhere  takes  the  same  operation  of  nature  and 
treats  it  in  the  mythical  way,  giving  to  every  globe 
of  vapour  its  own  life,  and  mingling  their  life  up 
with  the  life  of  the  spirits  who  make  music  in  the 
woods — so  changing  were  his  poetic  moods.  Here, 
the  Faun  in  the  Prometheus  speaks  : 

I  have  heard  those  more  skilled  in  spirits  say, 
The  bubbles,  which  the  enchantment  of  the  sun 
Sucks  from  the  pale  faint  water-flowers  that  pave 
The  oozy  bottom  of  clear  lakes  and  pools. 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  159 

Are  the  pavilions  where  such  dwell  and  float 
Under  the  green  and  golden  atmosphere 
Which  noontide  kindles  through  the  woven  leaves ; 
And  when  these  burst,  and  the  thin  fiery  air, 
The  which  they  breathed  within  those  lucent  domes, 
Ascends  to  flow  like  meteors  through  the  night. 
They  ride  on  them,  and  rein  their  headlong  speed, 
And  bow  their  burning  crests,  and  glide  in  fire 
Under  the  waters  of  the  earth  again. 

These  two  powers — the  power  of  making  fresh 
myths  out  of  nature,  and  that  of  describing  nature 
imaginatively  and  yet  with  scientific  truth,  are  but 
two  examples  of  separate  powers  which  other  poets, 
more  limited  by  conventions  of  thought,  can  scarcely 
be  said  to  possess,  or  if  they  possess,  to  use.  It  is 
the  existence  of  these  distinct  capacities  which,  as 
we  read  Shelley,  continually  brings  us  into  strange 
and  unaccustomed  worlds  of  thought  and  emotion. 
Then,  translated  into  these  unknown  and  delightful 
realms,  we  are  enchanted — if  we  can  see  them. 

It  may  be  said  that  such  representations  of  nature 
are  one-sided  representations.  A  poet  ought  to  be 
able  to  represent  nature  and  humanity  in  their 
mutual  questions  and  replies,  and  to  make  imagi- 
native the  various  theories  of  their  relations.  It 
is  true  ;  but  I  have  dwelt  here  only  on  what  was 
unique  in  Shelley's  imaging  of  nature.  He  can  do 
the  ordinary  business  as  well  as  any  other  poet  of 
his  century  and,  like  each  of  them,  with  a  difference 
of  his  own.  There^  are  many  poems  founded  on 
theoretic  conceptions  of  nature,  first  as  the  formx 
which  intellectual  beauty  (that  is,  our  idea  of  the 


i6o  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

beauty  that  exists  in  the  intellect  of  the  whole) 
takes  ;  and  secondly,  as  the  living  and  breathing 
image,  in  a  million  lovely  shapes,  of  all-sustaining, 
all-kindling  love.  There  are  also  a  crowd  of  lyrics 
in  which  nature  and  man  are  clasped  together  like 
the  hands  of  two  lovers.  There  are  other  poems  in 
which  nature  and  her  life  are  made  the  source  of 
reflections  on  human  life.  There  are  descriptions 
of  nature  which  gradually  lead  up  to  one  great  image 
in  which  is  embodied  a  generalisation  of  a  great 
crisis  in  human  history.  I  take  one,  a  well-known 
passage  : 

Hark  !  the  rushing  snow  ! 
The  sun-awakened  avalanche  !  whose  mass, 
Thrice  sifted  by  the  storm,  had  gathered  there 
Flake  after  flake,  in  heaven-defying  minds 
As  thought  by  thought  is  piled,  till  some  great  truth 
Is  loosened,  and  the  nations  echo  round. 
Shaken  to  their  roots,  as  do  the  mountains  now. 

With  regard,  then,  to  Shelley's  poetry  of  nature, 
and  of  nature  and  man,  there  are,  first,  only  a  few 
strings  of  the  great  harp  of  nature  and  man,  the 
strings  of  which  are  made  of  the  fibres  of  the 
human  heart,  and  the  sounding  wood  of  which  is 
nature  herself,  on  which  Shelley  does  not  play  with 
ease.  And  secondly,  with  regard  to  nature  alone, 
there  are  strings  of  her  lonely  harp  on  which  no  one 
has  ever  played  but  himself,  strings  whose  vibration 
is  so  high  and  shrill  and  faint  to  the  human  ear 
that  there  are  few  who  hear  their  music  aright. 
That  double  statement  is  my  contention. 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  i6i 

When  we  leave  the  lyrics  which  concern  nature, 
and  nature  and  man,  we  come  to  those  which  are 
concerned  only  with  human  life^  with  its  passion  and 
its  thought.  It  is  not  possible,  in  a  short  essay 
like  this,  to  treat  of  these  with  the  fullness  they 
deserve,  or  to  give  examples  of  their  several 
kinds.  I  can  only  isolate  and  distinguish  a  few 
of  them. 

There  are,  first,  those  that^embody  his  passing 
personal  impressions  with  regard  to  human  life,  of 
whicir^there  are  some  sTFange  utterances.  The 
general  spirit  which  informs  their  diverse  moods  is, 
however,  collected  into  one  thought  in  the  "Triumph 
of  Life^  the  last  poem  he  wrote,  where  he  describes 
the  overthrow  by  life  of  all  the  aspirations,  joys, 
and  work  of  men.  The  inexorable  destruction  of 
humanity  by  its  own  life  is  the  subject  of  that  poem, 
a  poem  modern  in  its  pessimism,  but  from  which 
Shelley  would,  had  he  lived,  have  freed  himself,  as  he 
has  already  begun  to  do  at  the  close  of  that  fragment. 
That  motive,  however,  is  the  impulse  of  a  number 
of  lyrics. 

Again,  there  are  all  the  love  lyrics,  and  a  curious 
revelation  they  are  of  the  ever-changing,  indifferent, 
indefinite  character  of  his  passion,  which  fled  from  its 
fulfilment  as  if  it  were  an  enemy  who  would  rob 
him  of  all  joy  since  it  robbed  him  of  pursuit  and 
limited  the  illimitable.  On  these  and  on  their 
temper  I  have  already  dwelt  in  the  Introduction  I 
wrote  to  the  Selections  from  Shelley} 

1  Golden  Treasury  Series.     Macmillan  and  Co. 
L 


i62  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

What  I  have  not  said  in  that  Introduction  is 
that  there  are  a  whole  class  of  Shelley's  lyrics  which 
defy  analysis  ;  which  purposely  darken  and  blur  the 
outlines  of  thought  and  emotion  whenever  those 
oudines  tend  to  become  clear ;  which  laugh  at  method ; 
which,  when  we  think  we  catch  their  meaning,  glide 
into  something  else,  leaving  the  thought  we  seemed 
to  attain  unfinished  ;  in  which  nothing  is  finished  ; 
but  which,  all  the  same,  leave  a  vivid  impression 
behind  them  of  the  state  of  Shelley's  feeling,  and  are 
representative  of  those  worlds  of  feeling  of  which 
we  are  often  conscious,  but  which,  being  like  vapour 
incessantly  involved  and  never  remaining  the  same 
for  a  single  instant,  we  can  never  realise,  These 
answer  to  the  things  which  the  impressionist  school  of 
painters  endeavour  to  produce,  and,  when  a  genius  is 
at  work,  succeed  in  producing.     Here  is  one  verse  : 

There  is  regret,  almost  remorse, 

For  Time  long  past. 
'Tis  like  a  child's  belovM  corse 
A  father  watches,  till  at  last 
Beauty  is  like  remembrance,  cast 

From  Time  long  past. 

And  who  is  to  explain  or  bring  into  either 
emotional  or  intellectual  consideration  the  long  lyric 
of  the  Witch  of  Atlas  ?  It  belongs  to  a  world  in 
which  thought  seeks  no  end,  and  no  emotion  has 
ever  time  to  feel  itself  because  another  emotion 
instantly  overtakes  it.  It  is  made  up  of  the  thou- 
sand thousand  impulses  and  imaginations  Shelley  had 
received  and  sheltered  from  moment  to  moment, 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  163 

while  he  wandered  among  the  mountains,  glens,  and 
streams  near  Pisa  and  Lucca.  He  flung  them  all 
around  the  person  of  his  Witch,  and  knitted  them 
into  a  poem  as  indefinite,  as  fantastic,  as  aerial  as  she, 
and  as  enchanting.  It  stands  alone  in  poetry.  Men 
who  seek  its  meaning  will  give  it  a  hundred  different 
meanings  ;  but  it  has  no  special  meaning.  It  is  the 
joyous,  unchartered  dancing  of  Shelley's  soul  in  the 
elfin  world  where,  when  he  pleased,  he  lived.  It  is 
not  serious,  the  critics  say,  it  is  not  a  criticism  of 
life.  Yet  it  will  be  read  with  pleasure  a  thousand 
years  hence,  and  will  satisfy  a  certain  not  uncommon 
mood  of  constant  humanity. 

Then  there  are  all  the  lyrics  of  liberty  and  hope 
for  the  poor  and  the  oppressed.  Some  of  these  are 
so^'wntten  that  in  them  also  Shelley  stands  some- 
what alone  among  English  poets.  Only  a  few, 
like  Ebenezer  Elliott,  have  written  poems  like  the 
Address  to  the  Men  of  England^  like  the  Masque  of 
Anarchy^  on  events  in  the  social  struggle  at  the  time 
of  the  events,  and  on  the  side  of  the  people  against 
its  oppressors.  Other  poets  have  generalised  on  the 
past  :  they  have  written  about  battles  in  which  the 
glory  of  England  is  displayed  ;  they  have  written 
against  the  foreigner,  if  he  were  at  war  with  us  ; 
but  they  have  not  gone  direct  to  the  quick,  as 
Shelley  did  with  a  sacred  indignation.  They  have 
not  written  ~  against  the  powerful  with  a  careless 
courage,  nor  pierced  into  the  heart  of  that  struggle 
of  the  poor  for  a  good  and  happy  life  which  is  the 
great  war  of  the  world,  not  only  in  England,  but  in 


i64  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

every  modern  nation.  Shelley  sympathised  with 
that  strife  when  other  poets  despised  or  ignored  it, 
and  his  songs  upon  it,  few  as  they  are,  might  be 
sung  to-day,  when  the  battle  has  deepened  into 
organised  war. 

The  cry  of  these  lyrics  which  had  to  do  with  the 
present  was  completed  by  lyrics  which  celebrated  the 
hopes  of  the  future,  and  by  others  which  described 
the  happier  world  to  come.  This  was  one  of  the 
main  regions  of  his  longer  poems,  from  the  ill-knit 
work  of  ^een  Mab  and  the  Revolt  of  Islam  to  the 
magnificent  restitution  of  man  and  nature  in  the 
Prometheus  Unbound.  If  we  were  audacious  we 
might  rank  that  poem  among  lyrics.  It  is  like  a 
lyric  written  in  a  larger  world  than  ours,  on  a 
mighty  scale,  for  a  universal  music,  by  a  great 
Archangel ;  by  Raphael  who  in  his  glory  still  com- 
passionates the  earth. 

The  Ode  to  Liberty^  in  its  large  imaginative  grasp 
of  the  story  of  human  freedom,  passes  from  the  days 
of  savagery  to  the  various  kinds  of  liberty  which 
Athens  and  Rome,  England  and  Italy,  Luther,  Milton, 
and  the  French  Revolution,  gave  to  the  world, 
and  from  them,  with  a  fierce  denunciation  of  kings 
and  priests,  to  the  praise  of  perfect  Freedom — free- 
dom that  never  can  remain  freedom,  unless  it  bring 
with  it,  as  comrades  and  assessors.  Wisdom  and 
Love  and  Justice  and  the  Fame  '  of  what  has  been, 
the  Hope  of  what  will  be.' 

The  Ode  to  Naples  is  born  of  the  same  spirit,  but 
is  confined  to  freedom  in  Italy  ;  and  as  he  wrote. 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  165 

the  spirit  of  beauty,  the  child  of  profound  love, 
which  Shelley  felt  moving  through  every  grain  of 
Italian  earth,  through  every  cell  of  Italian  air,  is 
mingled  up  with  the  spirit  of  liberty.  Its  main  cry 
is  that  without  freedom  no  beauty  can  be  seen,  and 
none  worshipped. 

These  odes  are  good,  but  thgy  are  over-elaborated. 
They  are  passionate,  but  their  passion  is  not..^lways 
natural^  They  have  the  air  of  being  schemed 
beforehand,  even  of  being  written  to  order.  But 
theriT'nearly'^ailr'odes  seem  to  share  in  these,  faults. 
The  form  of  the  ode  seems  to  suggest  them.  It  is, 
on  the  whole — except  perhaps  in  Keats — the  least 
satisfactory  of  lyric  forms. 

The  songs  in  Hellas  are  of  a  finer  quality,  and 
they  mingle  up  with  their  cry  for  liberty  noble 
aspiration  towards  a  iiew-created  world  and  un- 
flinching hopeJbr  its  advent.  It  is  a  hope  he  never 
quite  surrendered,  even  in  "the  last  years  ;  and  its 
most  lofty  and  clarion  note  is  in  the  prophetic  music 
of  the  Ode  to  the  West  Wind,  And  for  this  prophecy 
which  our  modern. poets  are  too  sad,  too  weary  with 
themselves,  to  touch  with  any  apocalyptic  fervour, 
too  conscious  of  the  trouble  and  confusion  in  which 
they  live  to  write  of  with  any  joy,  we  give  Shelley 
an  incessant  gratitude. 

With  the  songs  in  Hellas  the  prophetic  element 
in  the  lyrics  of  Shelley  is  no  more.  The  personal 
element  now  becomes  supreme.  His  hopes  for 
man,  his  faith  in  the  coming  of  a  just  and  love-ruled 
world  seem  to   have  faded  into  weariness.      The 


1 66  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

greater  part  of  Hellas  is  apathetic  work,  lashed  into 
a  false  excitement.  A  few  of  the  choruses  and  of 
the  songs,  especially  the  beautiful  verses  at  the  close  ; 
the  little  piece  of  Shelley's  philosophic  views  of  the 
universe  which  Ahasuerus  delivers  to  the  Sultan,  to 
his  humorous  confusion — are  true  and  vital  forms 
of  Shelley's  thoughts  and  emotion.  The  rest  is  un- 
worthy of  his  powers.  He  passed  from  them  in 
1822  into  purely  personal  lyrics,  and  on  these  I 
have  elsewhere  already  written. 

Finally,  I  should  like  to  dwell  on  the  unconscious 
logic  in  arrangement  of  some  of  Shelley's  lyrics.  I 
have  said  of  a  certain  class  of  them  that  they  have 
little  clearness  or  method,  or  continuity  of  thought 
or  emotion.  They  wander  and  drift,  as  it  were,  with- 
out an  aim.  But  with  others,  and  those  the  best,  it 
is  not  so,  but  the  very  contrary.  They  have  a  logical 
arrangement  of  their  own.  This  is  not  so  uncommon 
a  thing  in  poetry  as  those  imagine  who  think  that 
the  poet,  driven  by  a  kind  of  divine  mania  beyond 
himself,  works  without  knowing  where  he  is  going 
or  how  he  will  get  to  the  end.  There  is  a  logic  of 
emotion  as  well  as  of  thought,  and  though  it  does 
produce  itself  without  a  previous  scheme,  it  appears 
when  the  lyric  is  done,  and,  if  the  poet  have  great 
genius,  in  a  clear  order  which  may  be  subjected  by 
those  who  are  not  the  poet  himself  to  an  analysis  as 
rigid  as  that  to  which  we  can  subject  a  great  musical 
composition.  The  poet  himself  is  indeed  swept 
away,  but  all  throughout  his  torrent  movement  he 
follows  a  course  which  is  obedient  to  a  develop- 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  167 

ment  of  his  emotion  as  natural  and  as  orderly  as  a 
process  of  nature.  I  think  this  is  true  with  regard 
to  all  the  great  lyrics  of  the  world  ;  and  it  is  true 
especially  of  Shelley,  because  his  intellect  played  so 
large  a  part  in  the  whole  of  his  work.  It  was 
accustomed  to  do  close  work,  and  when  the  emotion 
was  first,  as  it  is  in  poetry,  and  carried  him  away,  his 
intellect,  in  rejoicing  subordination,  went  with  the 
emotion,  working  in  harmony  with  it  and  working 
as  a  willing  servant,  so  that  the  result,  which  was 
fully  emotional,  possessed  also  an  intellectual  order. 
I  suggest  one  example  in  the  little  lyric — When  the 
Lamp  is  Shattered,  The  first  verse  uses  four  com- 
parisons to  illustrate  the  passing  of  love.  These  are 
taken  up  and  re-used  in  different  ways  throughout 
the  rest  of  the  poem,  as  if  they  were  four  themes 
which  a  musician  brings  in,  at  intervals,  into  the 
main  idea,  in  order  to  emphasise  various  forms  of 
its  passion.  It  is  a  subtle  weaving,  but  a  reader, 
similarly  emotionalised  as  the  poet,  may  pass  easily 
and  clearly  through  its  labyrinth.  Such  a  logic  of 
emotion  may  be  found  throughout  Epipsychidion^ 
where  metaphors  seem  to  run  riot.  They  are  all 
really  held  in  hand.  I  give  another  instance-  from 
Alastor^  where  Shelley  is  describing  the  dying  frame 
of  the  wanderer  : 

A  fragile  lute,  on  whose  harmonious  strings 

The  breath  of  heaven  did  wander — a  bright  stream 

Once  fed  with  many-voiced  waves — a  dream 

Of  youth,  which  night  and  time  have  quenched  for  ever. 

Still,  dark,  and  dry,  and  unremembered  now. 


i68  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

The  last  line  takes  up  in  its  adjectives  the  three 
illustrations.  The  lute  is  still,  the  stream  is  dark  and 
dry,  the  dream  is  unremembered.  But  the  finest 
example  of  this  characteristic  quality  is  the  Ode  to 
the  West  Wtnd^  and  though  I  do  not  like  analysing 
a  poem  any  more  than  I  care  to  dissect  a  flower, 
yet  for  once,  and  to  see  Shelley's  way,  and  as 
conclusion  and  illustration  of  this  essay,  it  may  be 
permitted. 

He  has  been  walking  by  the  Arno,  in  the  wood 
which  skirts  it,  among  the  fallen  leaves,  and  has  seen 
the  congregated  clouds  rising  from  the  south-west  to 
usher  in  the  yearly  storm  with  which  the  autumnal 
rains  begin  in  October  in  Italy  ;  and  the  tempestuous 
motion  of  the  trees  and  the  clouds  awakens  the  tem- 
pestuous passion  of  his  heart,  so  easily  raised,  so 
stormily  uplifted,  so  transient  when  its  power  was 
spent.  Then  the  impulse  from  without  and  the 
awakened  impulse  within,  mingling  in  passionate 
embrace,  brought  forth  the  poem.  I  can  well 
imagine  the  first  lines  leaping  from  his  lips  in  a 
moment — thought,  emotion,  metre,  movement — all! 
rushing  together  into  a  self-creation. 

It  begins  with  the  West  Wind  rushing  through  the 
wood  like  a  living  river,  and  bearing  with  it  the 
dead  leaves — yellow  and  black  and  hectic  red — the 
Destrgyer,  the  wild  spirit  who  buries  the  deady  But 
with  the  dead  leaves  are  also  the  winged  seeds  which 
the  wind  too  bears  to  their  rest,  where  they  may 
quicken  when  Spring  blows  her  clarion— -Preserver, 
then,  as  well  as  Destroyer. 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  169 


O  wild  West  Wind,  thou  breath  of  Autumn's  being, 
Thou,  from  whose  unseen  presence  the  leaves  dead 
Are  driven,  like  ghosts  from  an  enchanter  fleeing. 

Yellow,  and  black,  and  pale,  and  hectic  red. 
Pestilence-stricken  multitudes ;  O  thou 
Who  chariotest  to  their  dark  wintry  bed 

The  winged  seeds,  where  they  lie  cold  and  low. 
Each  like  a  corpse  within  its  grave,  until 
Thine  azure  sister  of  the  Spring  shall  blow 

Her  clarion  o'er  the  dreaming  earth,  and  fill 
(Driving  sweet  buds  like  flocks  to  feed  in  air) 
With  living  hues  and  odours  plain  and  hill : 

Wild  Spirit,  which  art  moving  everywhere ; 
Destroyer  and  Preserver  :  hear,  oh,  hear  ! 

The  same  theme  is  repeated,  with  clear  strange 
changes,  in  the  sky,  then  in  the  ocean,  then  in 
Shelley's  own  heart,  and  then  for  the  whole  of  man. 
Nothing  can  be  intellectually  clearer  than  the  order, 
and  yet  the  emotion  is  always  the  master,  the  lord 
of  the  poem.  Nay  more,  the  images  used  in  these 
several  repetitions  are  similar,  though  fresh  images 
are  continually  added. 

He  sees  in  the  sky,  where  the  storm  is  beginning, 
the  same  things  he  has  seen  in  the  wood.  Heaven, 
and  ocean  from  whose  bosom  all  the  waters  came, 
are  now  the  great  forest  through  which  the  wind  is 
sweeping  like  a  broad  and  surging  river.  The  sky, 
before  the  huge  mass  of  cloud  brings  with  it  the 
steady  wind,  is  full  of  rushing  and  separate  avant- 
couriers  of  small  dark  clouds,  red  and  pale  and 
black,  that  fly  over  the  sky.    These  are  the  leaves 


170  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

of  this  forest  of  the  sky,  and  are  shaken  down 
upon  the  stream  and  surge  of  the  wind.  That 
image,  then,  and  daring  it  is,  is  bound  up  with  and 
repeats  the  first  verse.  But  Shelley,  thrilled  as  he 
looked  by  the  splendour  of  the  tempest,  and  driven 
by  his  emotion  to  change  the  image  that  he  might 
better  feel  the  passion  of  the  hour  and  represent  it 
better,  now  sees  the  coming  clouds  like  the  pageant 
of  the  burial  of  the  year  ;  a  vast  and  congregated 
procession,  to  which  night  is  the  sepulchral  dome, 
and  out  of  which  black  rain  and  fire  and  hail  will 
burst  —  new  images  of  that  which  he  originally 
imaged  as  the  black  and  red  leaves  of  the  wood. 
Before  this  the  loose  clouds  fly  like  Maenads,  their 
locks  blown  forward  by  the  wind,  and  the  wind 
itself  is  the  dirge  of  the  year,  the  impersonated 
sorrow  of  all  that  has  been,  but  which  it  now 
destroys.  For  in  this  verse  that  side  of  the  West 
Wind  which  makes  it  the  Destroyer,  and  not  the 
Preserver,  the  God  that  slays  rather  than  saves,  is 
given. 


Thou  on  whose  stream,  mid  the  steep  sky's  commotion, 
Loose  clouds  like  earth's  decaying  leaves  are  shed, 
Shook  from  the  tangled  boughs  of  Heaven  and  Ocean, 

Angels  of  rain  and  lightning :  there  are  spread 

On  the  blue  surface  of  thine  aery  surge, 

Like  the  bright  hair  upUfted  from  the  head 

f 
Of  some  fierce  Maenad,  even  from  the  dim  verge 

Of  the  horizon  to  the  zenith's  height, 

The  locks  of  the  approaching  storm.     Thou  dirge 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  171 

Of  the  dying  year,  to  which  this  closing  night 
Will  be  the  dome  of  a  vast  sepulchre, 
Vaulted  with  all  thy  congregated  might 

Of  vapours,  from  whose  solid  atmosphere 

Black  rain  and  fire  and  hail  will  burst :  oh,  hear ! 

But  the  next  verse  shows  the  West  Wind  as  the 
kindlier  impetuosity  of  the  universe.  The  theme 
in  the  first  verse  of  the  wind  as  the  Preserver,  as 
the  giver  of  life,  as  life  itself,  is  taken  up.  The 
wind  wakens  now  the  blue  Mediterranean,  for  we 
have  passed  from  the  forest,  from  the  wind  on  the 
earth,  from  the~wmd  in  the  sky,  to  the  wind  upon 
the  sea.  He  wakens  the  loveliness  of  the  isles  in 
Baias's  bay  ;  he  disturbs  the  sleep  of  the  waters  in 
which  lay  the  old  palaces  and  towers — freshly, 
brightly  disturbs  them.  Then  the  theme  changes  as 
before :  one  picture  is  not  enough  for  Shelley,  nor 
one  aspect  of  his  theme.  We  are  swept  back  again 
into  the  thought  of  the  wind  as  Destroyer.  From 
the  Mediterranean  we  are  borne  into  the  Atlantic, 
and  again  the  original  image  recurs.  The  sea  itself  is 
like  the  forest.  It  cleaves  itself  into  chasms  before 
the  fierce  stream  of  the  wind.  The  woods  of  ocean, 
the  sea-blooms,  and  the  sapless  foliage  grow  grey 
with  fear,  and  tremble  and  despoil  themselves. 


Thou  who  didst  waken  from  his  summer  dreams 
The  blue  Mediterranean,  where  he  lay, 
Lulled  by  the  coil  of  his  crystalline  streams, 


172  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

Beside  a  pumice  isle  in  Baiae's  bay ; 
And  saw  in  sleep  old  palaces  and  towers 
Quivering  within  the  wave's  intenser  day, 

All  overgrown  with  azure  moss  and  flowers 

So  sweet,  the  sense  faints  picturing  them  1     Thou 

For  whose  path  the  Atlantic's  level  powers 

Cleave  themselves  into  chasms,  while  far  below 
The  sea-blooms  and  the  oozy  woods  which  wear 
The  sapless  foliage  of  the  ocean,  know 

Thy  voice,  and  suddenly  grow  gray  with  fear, 
And  tremble  and  despoil  themselves  :  oh,  hear  ! 

Then  in  the  next  verse,  having  finished  with 
earth  and  sky  and  sea,  he  takes  up  a  side  issue  of 
emotion,  which  has  reference  to  himself — he  who  is 
earth  and  sky  and  sea  in  one.  Enthralled  by  the 
swiftness  and  strength  of  the  wind,  he  wishes  to  be 
lifted  and  borne  on  the  river  of  its  strength.  But 
even  then  he  does  not  forget  to  link  this  new  issue 
to  the  original  theme.  He  takes  up  forest  and  sky 
and  ocean  in  his  repeating  way  :  If  I  were  a  dead 
leaf  thou  mightest  bear — If  I  were  a  swift  cloud  to 
fly  with  thee — If  I  were  a  wave  to  share  thy  impulse 
of  thy  strength — If  I  were  even  what  I  was  when 
young  I  seemed  thy  equal,  scarce  less  swift  than 
thou — I  would  not  be  so  full  of  prayer  to  thee  ;  but 
I  am  as  weak  as  thou  art  strong,  O  lift  me — and 
again  knitting  his  thought  into  his  emotion,  not 
letting  us  loose  from  the  first  theme,  he  repeats  in 
change  the  images  :  '  O  lift  me  as  a  wave,  a  leaf,  a 
cloud.' 

I  know  nothing  of  music,  but  if  this  is  not  like 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  173 

the  way  a  musician  works  his  changes,  I  should  be 
surprised. 

Then,  lastly,  he  returns  from  this  side  issue  to 
the  main  emotion  and  the  main  image.  He  himself 
is  now  the  forest,  his  leaves  are  falling.  They  are 
his  thoughts,  multitudes  of  which  have  withered  and 
died.  Through  him  the  wind  is  passing,  the  wind 
of  the  universe,  and  it  drives  his  thoughts  along. 
But  as  it  passes  it  makes  harmonies  in  him.  He  is 
the  lyre  on  which  the  wind  plays.  In  that  way  he 
describes  how  the  poem  arose,  how  all  poems  about 
nature  are  born.  There  is  nothing  about  destruc- 
tion in  this  verse,  but  there  is  of  waking  and 
kindling.  The  impetuosity  and  strength  of  the 
wind — it  is  now  a  spiritual  power  of  the  universe 
— has  entirely  since  the  last  stanza  quenched 
in  Shelley's  mind  the  thought  of  the  wind  as  a 
Destroyer.  That  part  of  the  theme  is  exhausted, 
but  the  thought  of  the  wind  as  the  Preserver, 
which  was  barely  touched  before,  is  dominant  in 
the  last ;  and  Shelley,  now  at  the  very  height  of 
passion  and  in  full  union  with  the  tempest,  which 
is  about  to  burst  in  rain  and  splendour,  calls  on 
the  wind  to  be  himself,  to  drive  with  it  his  dead 
thoughts — the  winged  seeds  which  are  in  them,  as 
germs  are  in  the  flying  leaves  of  the  wood,  thus 
recalling  again  the  original  image — to  quicken  a  new 
life  in  mankind. 


Make  me  thy  lyre,  even  as  the  forest  is : 
What  if  my  leaves  are  falling  like  its  own ! 
The  tumult  of  thy  mighty  harmonies 


174  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

Will  take  from  both  a  deep,  autumnal  tone, 
Sweet  though  in  sadness.     Be  thou.  Spirit  fierce, 
My  Spirit !      Be  thou  me,  impetuous  one  ! 

Drive  my  dead  thoughts  over  the  Universe 
Like  withered  leaves  to  quicken  a  new  birth ! 

But  as  before,  uncontent  with  a  single  image,  he 
repeats  the  same  thought  in  another  image,  still, 
however,  clinging  close  to  the  wind,  and  images  an 
unextinguished  fire  in  his  heart,  each  spark  of  which 
is  a  thought.  Over  this  fire  the  rushing  wind 
is  blowing,  and  bears  on  its  wings  the  living  embers 
to  kindle  fire  in  the  souls  of  men. 

And,  by  the  incantation  of  this  verse, 

Scatter,  as  from  an  unextinguished  hearth 
Ashes  and  sparks,  my  words  among  mankind  ! 
Be  through  my  lips  to  unwakened  earth 

The  trumpet  of  a  prophecy ! 

The  last  thought  has  now  been  reached,  the  last 
realm  over  which  the  wind  is  sweeping.  It  has  passed 
through  the  forests  of  earth,  through  the  clouds  of 
the  sky,  into  the  depths  of  ocean,  through  the  woods 
and  sky  and  ocean  of  Shelley's  heart ;  and  then,  at 
the  very  point  and  climax  of  emotion,  it  leaves  him- 
self and  sweeps  through  all  mankind,  bearing  away 
with  it  dead  things  and  the  seeds  of  new.  Out  of 
the  personal  Shelley  passes  into  the  universal,  and 
at  that  moment  the  future  opened  to  him.  Beyond 
the  storm,  beyond  the  winter  it  ushers  in,  he  sees 
the  new-awakened  world,  the  birth  of  all  the  seeds, 
the  outburst  as  of  a  spring  in  hupianity ; 


THE  LYRICS  OF  SHELLEY  175 

O  Wind, 
If  Winter  comes,  can  Spring  be  far  behind  r 

This  Is  the  lyric  of  lyrics.  It  is  the  hymn  of  our 
own  world.  It  ought  to  be  set  to  music  by  a 
great  musician,  but  he  should  have  the  genius 
of  Beethoven.  '  Ineffectual  Angel ! '  indeed  ;  nay 
rather,  impassionating  Angel ! 


Of  TH£ 

UNIVERSITY 

Of 


EPIPSYCHIDION^ 

The  charm  which  belongs  to  Shelley,  and  the  delight 
which  a  great  poem  kindles  in  the  heart  of  man,  have 
made  Emilia  Viviani,  to  whom  the  Epipsychidion  was 
written,  one  of  the  interesting  women  of  the  world. 
In  herself  she  does  not  deserve  this  great  interest. 
She  was  intelligent,  passionate,  beautiful,  unhappy, 
capable  of  small  literature  ;  but  of  this  type  of 
women  there  are  thousands  in  all  classes  of  society 
of  whom  the  world  has  never  heard.  But  when 
Shelley  idealised  her,  she  became  a  personage,  and 
all  who  loved  Shelley  made  her  a  wonder. 

Medwin  described  her  as  one  might  describe  a 
Greek  Muse.  Mrs.  Shelley  wrote  a  long  description 
of  her  to  Leigh  Hunt,  and  painted  her  and  her 
character  under  the  name  of  Clorinda,  in  her  novel 
of  Lodore.  Claire  fell  in  love  with  her.  Shelley, 
enthralled  by  her  solitary  and  sorrowful  position, 
thinking  of  her  as  the  victim  of  oppression  and 
taken  for  a  time  with  her  beauty,  mingled  her  up 
with  the  ideal  of  Beauty  he  had  created,  partly  from 
Plato,  partly  from  his  own  thought ;  and  yet,  even 
while  he  was  with  her,  forgot  the  woman  in  the 
vision  which  she  enabled  him  to  spin  out  of  his  own 

1  An  address  to  the  Shelley  Society. 
176 


EPIPSYCHIDION  177 

imagination.  When  he  had  expressed  this  vision  in 
the  form  of  his  poem,  he  left  it  behind  him,  and 
with  it  he  left  Emilia.  And  when  he  ceased  to 
idealise  her,  his  charm  ceased  to  accompany  her,  and 
the  rest  of  his  circle  hesitated  no  longer  to  see  her 
in  the  rigid  light  of  day.  But  this  has  not  been  the 
case  with  those  who  care  for  poetry.  As  long  as 
Epipsychidion  is  read,  Emilia  Viviani  will  be  a 
romantic  figure.  She  may  have  become  prosaic  to 
Shelley,  as  she  did  ;  Mary  Shelley  may  have  mocked 
at  her  and  at  Shelley's  Platonics,  but  she  is  still 
alive  in  the  world  of  the  imagination  of  man,  and  so 
much  alive  that  we  are  even  angry  when  the  veil  of 
the  commonplace  is  thrown  over  her.  Indeed,  her 
tragic  fate  will  always  restore  her  to  her  poetic  place. 
She  for  whom  the  Ionian  isle  had  been  pictured  as  a 
dwelling,  and  perfect  love  as  her  joy,  died  broken- 
hearted, poisoned  by  the  deadly  breath  of  the 
Maremma.  And,  as  if  she  could  not  be  kept  out 
of  the  poetic  atmosphere,  we  cannot  help  thinking 
of  one,  as  fair,  perhaps  as  unwise,  who  perished 
in  the  Sienese  Maremma,  though  it  may  be  of  the 
dagger,  not  of  the  pestilence,  and  whom  Dante  has 
made  alive  for  ever  : 

Ricorditi  di  me,  che  son  la  Pia  ; 
Siena  mi  fe,  disfecemi  Maremma. 

We  keep  her  then,  and  we  do  so  rightly,  in  the 
element  of  Shelley's  poem,  but  if  ever  we  wish  to 
balance  our  poetic  impression,  and  to  clearly  under- 
stand that  the  woman  and  the  poem  belong  not  to 

M 


178  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

the  actual,  but  to  the  ideal  world,  we  may  take  up 
Shelley's  letters.  Every  one  knows  what  he  said 
afterwards  of  Epipsychidion  and  its  subject.  But 
the  words  which  follow  were  written  before  he  wrote 
the  poem,  and  are  cold  and  judicial. 

^I  see  Emilia  sometimes,  and  whether  her  presence 
is  the  source  of  pain  or  pleasure  to  me,  I  am  equally 
ill-fated  in  both.  I  am  deeply  interested  in  her 
destiny,  and  the  interest  can  in  no  manner  influence 
it.  She  is  not,  however,  insensible  to  my  sympathy, 
and  she  counts  it  among  her  alleviations.  As  much 
comfort  as  she  receives  from  my  attachment  to  her, 
I  lose.  There  is  no  reason  that  you  should  fear 
any  mixture  of  that  which  you  call  Love.  My  con- 
ception of  Emilia's  talents  augments  every  day. 
Her  moral  nature  is  fine,  but  not  above  circum- 
stances, yet  I  think  her  tender  and  true,  which  is 
always  something.  How  many  are  only  one  of 
these  things  at  a  time.' 

That  is  quite  enough.  It  has  not  the  touch  of 
any  real  passion.  It  was  written,  if  Mr.  Dowden's 
date  be  not  a  conjecture,  about  a  month  before 
he  began  Epipsychidion.  During  that  month  he 
saw  Emilia  continually ;  her  affection  for  him  in- 
creased, and  his  for  her  ;  and  when  he  wrote  the 
poem,  he  had  left  behind  for  a  time  the  indifferent 
coldness  of  the  words  I  have  quoted.  Much  of 
what  he  said  was  now  mixed,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, with  some  love  for  the  woman  herself, 
for  one  who  was  the  mortal  image  of  the  ideal 
creature,  the  soul  whom  he  loved  as  his  true  mate 


EPIPSYCHIDION  179 

and  complement  In  the  world  of  pure  thought 
and  love.  In  that  ideal  world  some  touch  of 
human  love  for  Emilia  now  mingles  itself  with  his 
immortal  love.  It  rises  through  the  intellectual 
imagery  of  the  poem,  and  setting  it  on  fire,  re- 
deems it  from  the  coldness  of  a  mere  philosophy 
of  love,  and  makes  it  passionate.  It  was  the 
same,  I  think,  in  the  Vita  Nuova.  Dante  writes 
of  the  absolute  Love,  and  the  Wisdom  which  is  at 
one  with  Love,  and  he  represents  this  under  the 
form  of  Beatrice.  But  he  also  writes — borne  away 
by  a  real  love — of  Beatrice  herself  alone  ;  and  then 
again,  seems  to  write  of  both  together,  as  if  the 
earthly  and  the  heavenly  passion  were  wrought  into 
one.  In  Epipsychidion  a  similar  thing  takes  place. 
Shelley  sometimes  speaks  of  Emily  as  of  a  woman 
towards  whom  he  feels  love,  and  sometimes  only  of 
his  Epipsychidion — the  divine  image  of  his  soul,  whom 
he  feels  through  her,  and  who  is  veiled  in  her.  The 
phrases  change  from  being  personal  and  passionate, 
to  being  impersonal  and  passionate.  The  image  and 
the  thing  imaged  are  frequently  fused  into  one. 
Emilia  and  the  ^  Soul  out  of  his  soul '  are  clasped 
together,  like  two  hands,  in  the  verse.  But  this  is 
chiefly  in  the  beginning  of  the  poem.  As  he  warms 
in  his  effort  Emilia  is  neglected.  She  has  done  her 
work.  He  has  ascended,  through  her,  to  the  divine 
mistress  of  the  world  of  his  own  thoughts — the  spirit 
whom  he  describes  in  the  Hymn  to  Intellectual  Beauty^ 
whom  he  pursues  in  Alastor^  whom  he  had  longed 
for  all  his  life  long,  but  whom  he  had  never  grasped. 


i8o  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

Emilia  is  but  the  passing  shadow  of  this  substance. 
For  a  moment,  in  the  rush  of  his  song  and  his 
thought,  he  seems  to  seize  the  substance  at  the  end 
of  the  poem.  But  the  effort  is  too  great.  He  falls 
back  from  that  high  region  with  a  broken  wing. 
'  Woe  is  me,'  he  cries — and  he  never  tried  to  reach 
it  again.  Epipsychidion  is  the  last  shape  into  which 
his  idealism  of  Love  was  thrown.  The  greatness  of 
the  failure,  following  on  the  greatness  of  the  effort, 
made  him  put  this  kind  of  thing  away  for  ever. 
When  he  spoke  afterwards  of  the  poem,  he  said — 
^  It  is  a  part  of  me  which  is  already  dead.'  And  all 
the  love  poems  which  follow  Epipsychidion  are  in  the 
real  world,  without  a  trace  of  philosophy,  inspired 
only  by  personal  affection. 

I  have  said  that  there  was  a  personal  element  in 
this  poem,  that  Shelley  had  some  feeling  for  Emilia 
herself.  But  there  was  another  element  of  person- 
ality in  it  different  from  that  which  had  to  do 
with  her.  He  infused  a  personality  intojjip  id^al 
Beauty  to  which  he  aspired  to  unite  himself.  Plato 
did  not  inTpersShate  his  idea  ot^Beauty,  but  Shelley 
did  this  thing.  He  was  forced  by  his  nature  to 
realise  the  idea  in  some  form,  and  to  realise  it  as  be- 
longing especially  to  himself.  Hence  he  created  an 
Epipsychidion — '  a_soul  out  ofJiLs  soul' — a  height- 
ened, externalised  personality  of  himself,  conceived 
as  perfect ;  an  ideal  image  of  his  own  being ; 
different  in  sex ;  his  complement ;  originally  part  of 
him,  now  separated  from  him  ;  after  whom  he 
pursued ;  whom  he  felt  in  all  that  was  calm  and 


EPIPSYCHIDION  i8i 

sublime  and  lovely  In  knowledge,  In  nature,  and  In 
woman  ;  and  to  absolute  union  with  whom,  such 
union  as  Is  described  In  the  latter  half  of  Epipsychi^ 
dton^  he  passionately  aspired/  And  this  Being,  since 
she  was  the  essence  of  all  the  loveliness  which  he 
could  conceive  or  feel,  represented  also  to  him  and 
for  him — Ideal  Beauty.  This  creation  was  not 
Platonic — Plato  spoke  only  of  the  Idea  of  Beauty. 
This  was  an  Invention  of  Shelley's,  an  addition,  to 
satisfy  his  cry  for  personality,  to  the  Platonic  theory 
of  love.     He  expresses  It  fully  enough  In  his  essay 

1  He  describes  this  love  of  his  in  'the  Zucca : 

I  loved — oh,  no,  I  mean  not  one  of  ye, 

Or  any  earthly  one,  though  ye  are  dear 
As  human  heart  to  human  heart  may  be  ; — 

I  loved,  I  know  not  what — but  this  low  sphere, 
And  all  that  it  contains,  contains  not  thee, 

Thou,  whom,  seen  nowhere,  I  feel  everywhere. 

From  Heaven  and  Earth,  and  all  that  in  them  are, 
Veiled  art  thou,  like  a  .  .  .  star. 

By  Heaven  and  Earth,  from  all  whose  shapes  thou  flowest, 

Neither  to  be  contained,  delayed,  or  hidden, 
Making  divine  the  loftiest  and  the  lowest, 

When  for  a  moment  thou  art  not  forbidden 
To  live  within  the  life  which  thou  bestowest ; 
And  leaving  noblest  things  vacant  and  chidden. 
Cold  as  a  corpse  after  the  spirit's  flight, 
Blank  as  the  sun  after  the  birth  of  night. 

In  winds,  and  trees,  and  streams,  and  all  things  common. 

In  music,  and  the  sweet  unconscious  tone 
Of  animals,  and  voices  which  are  human, 

Meant  to  express  some  feeling  of  their  own  ; 
In  the  soft  motions  and  rare  smile  of  woman, 

In  flowers  and  leaves  and  in  the  grass  fresh-shown, 
Or  dying  in  the  autumn,  I  the  most 
Adore  thee  present  or  lament  thee  lost. 


i82  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

on  Love  ;  and  it  reaches  its  extreme  of  mingled 
ideality  and  personality  in  the  poem  of  Epipsychidion. 
The  history  of  the  development  of  this  conception 
is  written  in  his  poetry.  In  the  Hymn  to  Intellectual 
Beauty  he  conceives  of  the  Archetypal  Beauty,  the 
beauty  which  is  the  model  and  source  of  all  beautiful 
forms,  much  as  Plato  might  have  conceived  of  it. 
It  is  not  personal  at  all.  It  is  a  pervading  spirit, 
whose  shadow,  but  never  whose  substance,  is  seen. 
But  this  conception  was  soon  changed.  Re  wanted 
personality.  He  embodied  this  archetype  in  a 
feminine  being,  existing  in  the  super-phenomenal 
world,  glimpses  of  whom  he  saw  at  times,  and  she 
was  the  other  half  of  his  own  soul.  '  Her  voice,' 
he  says  in  Alastor^ 

was  like  the  voice  of  his  own  soul 
Heard  in  the  calm  of  Thought. 

And  if  he  could  have  been  content  with  that — if 
he  could  have  kept  himself  wholly  to  the  ideal 
personality — it  had  been  well.  But  he  had  not 
strength  enough.  He  was  always  driven,  by  a  weak- 
ness in  his  nature,  to  try  and  find  her  image  in  real 
women.  His  ideal  love  continually  glided  back  into 
a  desire  of  realising  itself  on  earth  ;  and  yet,  when 
he  attempted  to  realise  it  in  any  woman,  she  fell,  or 
earthly  love  itself  fell,  so  far  below  the  ideal  image, 
that  he  was  driven  back  again  from  the  woman  on 
earth  to  the  ideal  in  his  own  soul.  Thus  smitten  to 
and  fro,  he  had  no  peace.  He  was,  as  he  calls  him- 
self in  AdonaiSy  '  a  power  girt  round  with  weakness ' 


EPIPSYCHIDION  183 

— the  creator  of  thoughts  which  afterwards  pursued 
their  creator  as  wolves  pursue  a  deer. 

Alastor  records  the  coming  of  this  vision  and  the 
agony  of  not  being  able  to  realise  it.  The  poet, 
unable  to  be  content  with  the  love  of  abstract  Beauty 
alone,  unable  to  find  it  realised  in  any  of  its  mortal 
images  on  earth  ;  unable  to  live  wholly  in  the  super- 
sensuous  world,  unable  to  satisfy  himself  in  the 
sensuous  ;  beaten  and  tortured  between  these  two 
inabilities,  dies  of  the  pain  of  the  struggle. 

Prince  Athanase^  as  we  discover  from  the  com- 
mentary, would  have  recorded,  perhaps  step  by  step, 
the  vicissitudes  of  this  pursuit.  A  number  of  other 
poems  contain  allusions  to  this  conception  which, 
from  his  long  brooding  on  it,  had  become  one  of  the 
roots  of  Shelley's  life  and  character.  Epipsychidion 
was  its  noblest,  most  triumphant,  most  complete 
expression,  and  in  that  expression  of  it,  it  perished. 
In  the  poem  he  recapitulates  the  whole  history  of 
this  idea  in  his  soul.  He  describes,  first,  the  being 
whom  his  spirit,  in  his  youth,  oft 

Met  on  its  visioned  wanderings,  far  aloft 

In  the  clear  golden  prime  of  my  youth's  dawn, 

whose  voice  came  to  him  from  nature,  history, 
romance,  and  high  philosophy,  whose  spirit  was  the 
harmony  of  truth.  This  is  the  Spirit  in  the  Hymn 
to  Intellectual  Beauty.  Then  he  describes,  in  the 
lines  which  begin — 

Then  from  the  caverns  of  my  dreary  youth, 
the  vain   search  for  her,  repeating  in  this  passage 


1 84  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

the  motive  of  the  story  of  Alastor.  In  the  midst  of 
this  we  come  upon  that  phase  of  the  pursuit  which 
is  not  contained  in  Alastor^  but  is  contained  in  the 
notes  to  Prince  Athanase—t)\Q  meeting  with  that 
false  image  of  pure  Beauty  which  awakens  sensual 
love,  a  phase  which  is  treated  of  by  Plato  : 

There — One,  whose  voice  was  venomed  melody 
Sate  by  a  well,  under  blue  nightshade  bowers  ; 
The  breath  of  her  false  mouth  was  like  faint  flowers, 
Her  touch  was  as  electric  poison, — flame 
Out  of  her  looks  into  my  vitals  came, 

And  this  lower  love  may  be  compared  with  that 
dwelt  on  in  Shakespeare's  later  Sonnets,  to  which 
Shelley,  speaking  of  Epipsychidion^  refers. 

Having  thus  recapitulated  his  youthful  experience 
in  the  pursuit  of  ideal  Beauty,  he  next  turns  to 
show  how  he  sought  in  mortal  women,  and  in  love 
of  them,  to  find  the  shadow  of  this  soul  out  of  his 
soul — some  image  of  the  celestial  substance  of  pure 
Beauty.  He  goes  through  these  women,  one  after 
another,  and  represents  them  under  various  symbols. 
I  have  elsewhere  made  some  conjectures  with  regard 
to  the  actual  women  whom  he  represents  under 
these  symbols,  but  no  certainty  can  be  arrived  at 
concerning  them.  Only  one  thing  is  plain,  Mary 
Godwin  is  the  Moon  of  the  passage,  and  it  is  clear 
from  what  he  says  that  she  did  not  completely 
satisfy  his  heart.  But  she  only  fails  to  satisfy  him 
so  far  as  she  is  of  the  earth,  and  not  of  the  ideal 
region.  He  was  quite  content  with  her  as  long  as 
he  chose  to  live  in  the  outward  world.     But  for  the 


EPIPSYCHIDION  185 

supersensuous  universe,  and  as  a  realisation  of  his 
spiritual  bride,  she  was  not  enough.  Then  he  meets 
Emilia  ;  and  in  her,  for  a  time,  at  his  first  contact 
with  her,  he  seems  to  meet  the  actual  image,  the 
earthly  form  of  the  ideal  Beauty  whom  he  claims 
as  the  bride  of  his  soul.  In  speaking  of  her,  he 
mingles  the  ijdgal3nd,Jthe.---yeal  together,  the  djvine__ 
and_the  Jminan.  But  as  the  poem  goes  on,  the 
woman  as  a  woman  ceases  to  be  palpable  in  his 
verse.  There  is  no  confusion  now  between  the 
image  of  Emily  and  the  thing  imaged.  Emily  as  a 
woman  has  disappeared.  There  is  nothing  left  but 
the  vision  of  Beauty  embodied  in  his  Epipsychidion, 
whom  he  seems  at  last  to  grasp,  and  whom  he  calls 
Emily.  Sometimes  a  phrase  of  personal  passion 
slips  in,  because  of  his  '  error  of  seeking  in  a  mortal 
image  the  likeness  of  what  is  perhaps  eternal,'  but 
from  the  moment  he  cries. 

The  day  is  come,  and  thou  wilt  fly  with  me, 

he  speaks  only  of  the  vision  of  his  youth,  of  the 
personality  of  her  who  is  his  second  soul  or  perhaps 
his  very  soul,  of  the  substance  of  whom  he  only 
possesses  a  shadow  ;  of  the  spiritual  form  of  the 
pure  and  ideal  Beauty  which,  in  the  supersensuous 
world,  belongs  to  him  ;  of  her  whose  pressure  on 
him  from  without  is  the  source  of  all  his  ideals,  all 
his  aspiration  ;  whom  he  feels  speaking  to  him  in 
all  knowledge,  love,  nature,  and  thought.  Emilia 
herself  is  but  one  step  in  the  ladder  by  which  he  has 
attained  the  vision  of  union  with  this  pure,  personal, 


1 86  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

spiritual  shape  of  Beauty.  It  is  with  her,  under 
the  name  of  Emily,  that  he  flies  away  into  the  life 
beyond  phenomena.  The  description  of  the  flight 
is  entirely  symbolical.  The  Ionian  isle  and  all  else 
are  meant  to  be  impalpable ;  images  of  an  immaterial 
world.  No  keel,  he  declares,  has  ever  ploughed 
the  sea-path  to  that  island.  It  is  cradled  between 
Heaven,  Air,  Earth,  and  Sea.  No  scourges  that 
afflict  the  earth  visit  it.  A  soul  burns  in  the  heart 
of  it,  an  atom  of  the  Eternal.  And  a  passionate 
description  of  his  life  there  with  Emily  is  not  a 
description  of  earthly  passion.  It  is  the  description 
of  Shelley  at  last  united  to  that  other  far-off^  half  of 
his  being,  and  the  incorporation  of  the  two  into  one 
is  as  incorporeal  as  the  rest.  It  is  a  description  of 
the  one  ideal  yearning  of  the  soul  towards  Beauty  ; 
of  the  only  true  love  which  is  felt  in  life  (which  but 
touches  earthly  women  on  its  path  as  means  towards 
its  end)  clasping  at  last  its  ideal  in  the  immaterial 
world  of  pure  Thought,  and  with  the  emotion  of 
that  Thought.  But  it  is  so  far  beyond  that  which 
is  possible  for  man  to  realise  continuously  while  he 
is  shut  in  by  mere  phenomena,  that  having  attained 
it  for  a  moment,  he  breaks  down,  and  falls  exhausted 
from  the  height. 

Woe  is  me ! 
The  winged  words  on  which  my  soul  would  pierce      _ 
Into  the  heights  of  love's  rare  Universe, 
Are  chains  of  lead  around  its  flight  of  fire. — 
I  pant,  I  sink,  I  tremble,  I  expire  ! 

The  one  true  love  of  human  life  is  then  ideal,  not 


EPIPSYCHIDION  187 

in  the  world  of,lIi^.^nses  at  all,  and  cannot  be 
realised  or  satisfied  bj^^y  thing  or  any  one  on  earth. 
Its  object,(ideal  Beau^Jcontains  the  substance  of  all 
the  varied  forms  ot  Keauty  which  we  find  in  thought, 
in  emotion,  in  nature,  and  in  humanity.  This 
Beauty  is  the  one  life  in  a  million  forms  which  are 
themselves  its  painted  shadows.  Hence,  when  we 
love  man,  woman,  or  any  form  of  nature,  it  is  not 
these  that  primarily  we  love.  We  love  the  living 
spirit  of  Beauty,  of  which  each  of  them  is  one  phase 
alone,  and  we  love  these,  that  we  may  pass  beyond 
them  to  the  spirit  that  they  partially  express.  They 
are  steps  in  a  ladder  by  which  we  reach  the  perfect 
reality. 

Hence  arose  a  theory  of  personal  human  love 
which  traverses  the  code  of  social  morals,  and  that 
theory  Shelley  held.  It  was,  that  to  bind  ourselves 
down  to  one  object  of  love  alone  was  not  wise, 
because  then  we  rendered  ourselves  incapable  of 
seeing  and  realising  those  different  aspects  of 
the  ideal  Beauty  which  we  could  find  in  other 
minds,  in  other  personalities.  When  we  limit  our 
loves,  we  limit  our  capacity,  so  far,  of  grasping  a 
full  conception  of  Beauty.  He  introduces,  logically 
enough,  this  view  of  his  into  the  midst  oi  Epipsychi- 
dion.  Whether  Mary  liked  that  theory,  whether 
it  has  any  Tightness  in  it  at  all,  how  far  Shelley 
practised  it,  or  refrained  from  putting  it  into  prac- 
tice, is  not  the  question  now.  He  held  it  in  theory, 
and  he  places  it  here.  He  never  was  attached,  he 
says,  to  that  great  sect — 


i88  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

Whose  doctrine  is,  that  each  one  should  select 
Out  of  the  crowd  a  mistress  or  a  friend, 
And  all  the  rest,  though  fair  and  wise,  commend 
To  cold  oblivion. 

Feeling  immediately  that  it  will  be  said  that  to 
love  more  than  one  person  in  this  relation  is  to 
destroy  love,  he  expands  his  theory  by  stating  that 
love  is  of  such  a  quality  that  it  is  not  lost  by  being 
divided.  The  first  object  of  love  is  not  less  loved, 
but  more  loved,  by  the  person  who  loves,  when  he 
gives  love  to  other  objects,  to  other  persons.  Love 
is  like  understanding  which  grows  bright  by  gazing 
on  many  truths.  Nay,  if  love  is  given  to  only  one 
object,  it  builds  for  itself  a  grave.  Again,  when  we 
divide  the  base  things  of  life,  suffering  and  dross, 
we  may  diminish  them  until  they  are  consumed. 
But  if  we  divide  the  nobler  things,  pleasure,  and 
love,  and  thought,  each  part  exceeds  the  whole,  and 
we  know  not 

How  much,  while  any  yet  remains  unshared. 
Of  pleasure  may  be  gained,  of  sorrow  spared, 

to  man. 

This  is  a  theory  capable  of  being  wrongly 
used  by  those  who  have  the  sensual  idea  of  love 
and  beauty.  By  Shelley,  who  abhorred  not  only 
sensuality,  but  even  claimed  the  world  beyond 
the  senses  (the  world  of  ideas)  as  the  only  real 
world,  it  could  not  be  used  in  that  manner.  But  it 
made  him  run  counter  to  the  code  of  morals  which 
prevails  in  society  on  the  question  of  marriage. 
The  moment  he  ceased  to  love  Harriet  Westbrook 


EPIPSYCHIDION  189 

he  considered  himself  as  no  longer  married  to  her, 
and  went  away  with  a  woman  he  did  love.  He  never 
ceased  to  love  Mary,  and  therefore  he  was  always 
faithful  to  her.  But  he  saw  no  reason  whatever 
why  he  should  not,  while  he  was  faithful  to  Mary, 
give  deep  affection  to  other  women,  and  find 
represented  in  them  other  phases  of  the  absolute 
Beauty,  which  phases  he  was  bound  to  feel  and 
gain,  through  them.  And  this  he  did — though 
society  necessarily  condemned  his  action — with  a 
conviction  of  his  rightness.  Emilia  represented, 
and  with  astonishing  force  to  him,  one  of  these 
forms  of  the  ideal  Beauty,  and  enabled  him,  through 
his  affection  for  her,  to  get  nearer  to  realisation  of 
it  than  he  had  ever  done  before.  It  is  therefore 
quite  natural  that  the  statement  of  this  theory  should 
be,  as  it  were,  the  centre  piece  of  the  poem. 

I  turn  now  to  the  poetical  quality  of  the  poem 
and  to  the  characteristics  of  Shelley's  work  displayed 
in  it. 

It  is  an  exceedingly  personal  poem,  and  contains 
almost  all  Shelley's  weaknesses  and  powers,  and  both 
these  at  their  height,  because  writing,  and  writing 
passionately,  about  his  own  inward  life,  he  was  under 
no  such  restraint  as  a  subject  apart  from  himself 
would  naturally  furnish.  Here  nothing  that  he 
thought  seemed  irrelevant,  for  the  subject  was  his 
own  thought. 

He  starts  on  his  way  like  the  stream  that  leaped 
when  Moses  smote  the  rock.  The  introduction 
is  short,  but  ends  with  a  phrase  which  shows  how 


190  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

he  chose,  from  the  very  beginning,  to  throw  off  all 
literary  reticence  : 

I  weep  vain  tears,  blood  would  less  bitter  be, 
Yet  poured  forth  gladlier,  could  it  profit  thee. 

And  then  we  are  afloat  not  on  a  river,  but  on  a 
torrent,  on  whose  swift  and  flashing  surface,  as  we 
move,  we  have  scarcely  time  to  breathe.  This  marks 
the  whole  poem.  It  is  the  most  rapid  of  all  his 
works.  There  is  only  one  pause  in  it  :  just  before 
the  torrent  changes  into  a  deeper,  quieter  stream, 
but  a  stream  even  more  swift  than  the  torrent. 
The  pause  is  where  he  stops  to  describe  the  theory 
of  love  which  he  held.  That  is,  as  it  were,  the 
portage  in  the  midst  of  the  descent  of  the  river  ;  the 
halt  on  the  wayside  before  the  race  is  taken  up  again, 
with  the  goal  in  sight. 

He  begins  by  a  description  of  Emily,  but  far 
more  a  description  of  the  image  of  Beauty  he  wor- 
shipped in  the  calm  of  his  soul.  The  phrases  change, 
as  I  said,  from  Emilia  to  the  Beauty  she  shadows, 
and  from  that  Beauty  back  again  to  her.  The  two 
are  mingled  as  Form  and  IdeaN^re  mingled. 

It  was  a  constant  artistic  habit  of  his,  when  he  had 
found  a  theme — and  I  use  the  word  in  its  musical 
sense — a  theme  such  as  he  finds  in  the  lines  ; 

Seraph  of  Heaven  !  too  gentle  to  be  human, 
Veiling  beneath  that  radiant  form  of  Woman 
All  that  is  insupportable  in  thee 
Of  light  and  love  and  immortality ! 

— to  vary  that  theme  as  long  as  he  could,  changing 


EPIPSYCHIDION  191 

the  key,  and  then  following  eagerly  the  new  thoughts, 
with  their  correlative  emotions,  which  were  suggested 
by  the  change  of  key.  He  follows  these  wherever 
they  lead  him,  no  matter  into  what  strange  places  ; 
inspired,  but  with  an  ungirdled  inspiration.  He 
did  not  retain,  save  rarely,  that  steady  command 
over  his  materials,  that  power  of  choice  and  rejec- 
tion over  his  imaginations  which  the  greatest  artists 
possess.  In  his  eager  movement  of  improvisation 
he  frequently  puts  down  every  thought — and  the 
thoughts  are  shaped  in  metaphors — -which  occurs  to 
him  ;  and  too  often  trusts  to  accumulation  rather 
than  to  choice  to  produce  his  effect.  There  are 
fine  exceptions,  the  best  of  which  is  the  Ode  to  the 
West  Wind^  but  they  are  exceptions.  Again,  he  is 
often  forced,  in  order  to  get  his  thought  into  form 
before  him,  to  shape  it  into  a  multitude  of  meta- 
phors, each  without  connection  with  its  companions, 
and  at  the  end  to  find  that  he  has  failed  to  satisfy 
himself.  The  thought  is  not  shaped.  The  greater 
poet,  like  Homer,  would  have  chosen  one  com- 
parison and  done  all  he  wanted  with  one.  Three 
times  Shelley,  working  in  this  way,  returns  to  the 
charge  at  the  beginning  of  this  poem,  and  three 
times  he  records  his  failure. 

The  series  of  metaphors  which  call  the  Seraph  of 
Heaven  who  is  hidden  in  Emilia- 
Sweet  Benediction  in  the  eternal  Curse ! 
Veiled  Glory  of  this  lampless  Universe  ! 
Thou  Moon  beyond  the  clouds !   Thou  living  Form 
Among  the  Dead  !   Thou  Star  above  the  Storm  ! 


192  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

Thou  Wonder  and  thou  Beauty  and  thou  Terror ! 
Thou  Harmony  of  Nature's  art !   Thou  Mirror 
In  whom,  as  in  the  splendour  of  the  Sun, 
All  shapes  look  glorious  which  thou  gazest  on  ! 

— ten  metaphors — end  in  his  saying  that  his  words 
are  dim  and  obscure  her,  as  they  certainly  do. 

The  next  attempt  to  embody  his  thought,  in  a 
changed  key,  begins  with 

Sweet  Lamp  !   my  moth-like  Muse  has  burnt  its  wings ; 

and   ends,   after  thirteen  metaphors,  with   another 
confession  of  failure  : 

I  measure 
The  world  of  fancies,  seeking  one  like  thee, 
And  find — alas  !   mine  own  infirmity. 

By  this  time,  however,  Shelley,  who  always 
warmed  while  he  wrote,  his  own  music  thrilling 
him  into  quicker  creation  (one  of  the  marks  of  him 
as  a  fine  artist  being  that  at  the  end  of  his  poems 
he  becomes  a  greater  poet  than  at  the  beginning), 
had  risen  into  a  higher  region,  and  the  beat  of  his 
wing  in  it  is  stronger  now  and  nobler  than  before. 
Again  he  renews  his  attempt  to  shape  his  thought, 
and  he  almost  succeeds. 

She  met  me.  Stranger,  upon  life's  rough  way, 

so  he  begins,  and  the  series  of  similes  with  which  he 
indicates  that  glory  of  the  Being  of  beauty  which 
shines  through  Emilia's  mortal  shape — here  ended 
by  a  rapid  rush  of  metaphors,  at  last  linked  to- 


EPIPSYCHIDION  193 

gether  with  some  unity  by  his  spiritual  passion — 
is  a  splendid  series,  containing  two  magnificent  de- 
scriptions of  aspects  of  the  sky,  thrown  off  in  the 
quick  rush  of  the  verse  for  mere  enrichment  of  his 
thought. 

The  whole  passage  has  the  quality  of  great  music, 
and  its  fault,  if  I  may  call  it  a  fault,  is  that  it  is  done 
in  the  manner  of  music,  and  the  manner  of  music  is 
not  the  manner  of  poetry.  Yet  the  higher  he  soars, 
and  the  more  noble  his  flight  (and  this  is  extremely 
characteristic  of  Shelley  as  an  artist),  the  more  he 
feels  that  he  is  not  master  of  his  own  passion  ;  that 
he  cannot  grasp  the  fiery  bird  of  his  own  thought 
and  bid  it  stay  its  flight  for  definition.  He  cries 
at  the  end  : 

Ah,  woe  is  me  ! 
What  have  I  dared  ?  where  am  I  lifted  ?  how 
Shall  I  descend,  and  perish  not  ? 

And  this,  which  I  have  described,  applies  not 
only  to  this  beginning,  but  to  the  whole  poem. 
Even  after  the  extraordinary  ease,  rapidity,  and 
sustained  loveliness  of  the  last  part,  after  its  noble 
and  breathless  climax,  he  feels  that  he  has  not 
realised  his  conception,  is  most  conscious  of  his 
weakness  when  he  is  most  master  of  his  power. 
'  Woe  is  me ' — he  takes  up  the  phrase  again — 

The  winged  words  on  which  my  soul  would  pierce 
Into  the  height  of  love's  rare  Universe 
Are  chains  of  lead  around  its  flight  of  fire. — 
I  pant,  I  sink,  I  tremble,  I  expire  ! 

N 


194  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

Yes,  this  is  one  of  the  marks  of  the  man,  and 
well  he  knew  it. 

His  head  was  bound  with  pansies  overblown?- 

It  is  easy  to  heap  critical  blame  on  Shelley  for 
this.  Any  fool  is  capable  of  that,  and  many  have 
had  that  capability.  But  if  we  could  take  away  this 
weakness  we  should  not  have  Shelley  any  longer, 

1  It  maybe  that  I  have  dwelt  a  little  too  much  on  this  confession  of 
weakness,  and  I  certainly  should  not  have  done  so  if  it  had  occurred 
only  in  this  poem,  which  is  not  only  personal  but  philosophical.  But 
it  appears  again  and  again  in  poems  which  are  wholly  personal — at  the 
end  of  the  Ode  to  the  West  Windy  in  the  portrait  he  draws  of  himself  in 
the  Adonais.  Want  of  power  to  keep  the  heights  he  could  gain  was 
felt  by  Shelley  himself  to  be  one  of  his  characteristics. 

Otherwise,  I  should  have  not  made  so  much  of  it  in  this  place  j  be- 
cause this  swooning,  as  it  were,  of  the  mind  when  it  is  brought  face  to 
face  with  absolute  Beauty,  and  is  therefore  thrilled  with  the  absolute 
Love,  is  common  to  all  the  mediaeval  poets  who  wrote  about  Love, 
and  is  described  by  them  literally  and  allegorically.  Even  in  the 
Con^ito,  which  Shelley  may  have  had  in  his  memory,  and  where  Dante, 
in  his  later  years,  wrote  distinctly  of  his  Lady  as  signifying  Philosophy 
— the  most  beautiful  and  excellent  daughter  of  the  Ruler  of  the 
Universe — we  find  the  Poet  making  the  same  confession  as  Shelley 
made.  He  describes  at  the  end  of  the  third  chapter  of  the  third 
Treatise  how  powerless  language  is  to  express  what  the  intellect 
(Jntellettoi)  sees. 

*  E  dico  che  li  miei  pensieri,  che  sono  parlar  d'amore,  sono  di  lei  j 
che  la  mia  anima,  cioe  '1  mio  affetto,  arde  di  potere  cio  con  la  lingua 
narrare.  E  perche  dire  nol  posso,  dico  che  Tanima  se  ne  lamenta 
dicendo  :  ^Lassa,  ch"  to  non  son  possente.''  E  questa  e  V  altra  inefFabilita  j 
cioe,  che  la  lingua  non  e  di  quello  che  lo  'ntelletto  vede  compiutamente 
seguace.' 

This  only  corresponds  with  that  failure  of  words,  of  which  Shelley 
speaks,  to  express  thought.  But  Dante's  mind  was  too  mighty  to  lose 
its  power  over  itself.  It  is  only  at  the  sight  of  the  eternal  light  of 
Deity — only  after  he  has  drawn  nearer  to  expression  of  the  ineffable 
than  we  can  conceive  possible  to  man,  that  he  cries 
*  Air  alta  fantasia  qui  manco  possa  !  * 


EPIPSYCHIDION  195 

but  some  one  else,  and  one  distinction  he  has  among 
the  poets  would  be  lost.  For  to  take  away  the 
weakness  would  be  to  take  away  also  the  powers  of 
which  the  weakness  was  an  extreme.  He  fell  ex- 
hausted, but  it  was  because  he  soared  so  high ;  he 
trembled  like  a  leaf,  but  it  was  because  he  was  of 
such  a  nature  that  he  could  feel  the  more  delicate 
secrets  of  the  Universe. 

And  the  question  to  ask  is  not — '  Why  was  he 
so  weak  ? '  but — ^  Is  there  any  other  poet  who  could 
soar  in  this  skylark  fashion,  and  into  these  fine 
ethereal  regions  ? '  and  ^  Is  it  possible  to  soar  into 
them  in  any  other  way  ? '  There  are  tenderer 
regionSc  no  doubt,  than  these,  wiser  also,  and  more 
practical  regions — more  practical  for  comfort  and 
teaching  to  men,  for  sweet  and  helpful  thought,  for 
feeling  that  inspires  and  heals — higher  regions  where 
the  more  majestic  imaginations  dwell,  like  the  gods, 
in  valleys  of  calm  and  joy  ;  and  into  these  Shelley 
did  not  soar.  But  his  nature  did  not  take  him 
there.  Where  his  nature  did  take  him  was  a  region 
into  which  no  one  else  takes  us,  and  where  it  is  well 
we  should  sometimes  travel ;  or,  if  it  be  said  it  is 
not  well,  where  a  good  number  of  us  wish  to  be 
taken.  There  is  no  one  else  but  Shelley  to  bring 
us  into  that  far  dim  country.  This  is  a  part  of  his 
distinctiveness  and  his  distinction  ;  and  it  is  a  great 
thing  for  us.  And  the  solemn  persons  who  do  not 
wish  to  come,  but  stay  only  among  the  other  regions 
of  poetry,  need  not  grudge  us  our  charioteer,  nor 
our  course  in  the  ether  with  him. 


196  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

Next,  I  wish  to  draw  attention  to  another  poetic 
power  Shelley  possessed,  which  is  well  illustrated  in 
Epipsychidion.  It  is  his  power  of  realising  and 
describing  landscapes  which  are  wholly  ij^g^  They 
do  not  belong  to  nature,  nor  do  they  imitate 
her.  They  are  no  more  records  of  what  has  been 
actually  seen  with  the  eyes  than  are  the  landscapes 
of  Burne-Jones.  Like  him,  Shelley  invented  his 
landscape  for  his  subject,  and  it  is  intended  to  be 
remote  from  ^ality^ 

When,  descnBmg  how  the  voice  of  the  spirit  of 
Beauty  came  to  him  in  solitudes,  he  speaks  of  the 
fountains  and  the  odours  of  flowers,  the  breeze  and 
the  rain,  he  does  what  another  man  could  do.  But 
when  he  creates  the  country  of  the  following  lines, 
which  is  dreamland,  and  yet  which  we  see  and  feel, 
he  does  what  no  other  poet  but  Shelley  has  ever 
done.     He  meets  the  spirit  of  Beauty 

In  the  clear  golden  prime  of  my  youth's  dawn, 
Upon  the  fairy  isles  of  sunny  lawn, 
Amid  the  enchanted  mountains,  and  the  caves 
Of  divine  sleep,  and  on  the  air-like  waves 
Of  wonder-level  dream,  whose  tremulous  floor 
Paved  her  light  steps ; — on  an  imagined  shore, 
Under  the  grey  beak  of  some  promontory 
She  met  me,  robed  in  such  exceeding  glory 
That  I  beheld  her  not. 

How  unlike  nature — yet  how  clear !  How 
ethereal,  yet  how  vivid  in  his  imagination  !  It  is 
indefinite,  yet  definite  enough  to  see.  And  where 
it  is  most  definite — '  under  the  grey  beak  of  some 


EPIPSYCHIDION  197 

promontory ' — it  is  made  most  ideal  by  the  super- 
natural touch  at  the  end,  which  transfers  the  whole 
to  the  region  of  the  finest-woven  thought, — '  robed 
in  such  exceeding  glory  that  I  beheld  her  not ' — a 
phrase  which  throws  its  ideality  back  on  all  that  has 
preceded  it,  and  makes  the  landscape  even  more 
ethereal. 

Still  more  out  of  the  world  does  his  description 
become  when  he  pictures  himself  as  leaving  this 
imagined  land,  and  springing,  ^  sandalled  with 
plumes  of  fire,'  into  pure  space  to  find  his  ideal. 
Yet,  though  he  is  in  an  unseen,  unimagined  void, 
the  vision  that  he  sees  is  definite.  He  beholds 
himself  flitting  here  and  there,  and  then — 

She,  whom  prayers  or  tears  then  could  not  tame, 
Past,  like  a  God  throned  on  a  winged  planet, 
Whose  burning  plumes  to  tenfold  swiftness  fan  it, 
Into  the  dreary  cone  of  our  life's  shade. 

What  impersonation  !  Clearness  of  vision  midst  of 
the  visionary  ! 

And  now  a  new  imagery  comes  into  the  poem. 
The  whole  landscape  changes  to  fit  a  new  mood  of 
mind.  Unity  of  impression  is  neglected  for  the 
sake  of  incessant  altering  of  the  mood,  and  with 
each  mood  the  scenery  alters.  He  has  seen  a 
momentary  vision  of  the  perfect  Beauty,  but  has 
been  unable  to  pursue  it.  The  whole  universe 
mocks  his  endeavour,  and  he  goes  into  the  wintry 
forest  which  represents  life  after  youth's  ideal  has 
been   dethroned.     Another   poet  would    not   have 


198  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

carried  further  the  metaphor  of  the  forest.  Shelley, 
on  the  contrary,  invents  a  whole  scenery  for  the 
wood;  realises  it,  as  if  it  were  an  actual  forest.  It  is 
a  thorny  place,  through  which  he  stumbles,  and  great 
trees  fill  it  and  grow  on  the  grey  earth.  Strange 
plants  and  strange  beasts  are  in  it,  and  untaught 
foresters.  It  is  there  he  meets  by  a  well,  under 
nightshade  bowers,  the  image  of  sensual  love. 
When  he  is  deceived  by  his  first  hope,  and  stays  his 
footsteps,  he  seems  changed  into  a  deer  hunted  by 
his  own  thoughts.^  On  the  path,  then,  one  stands 
like  the  Moon  descended  to  Endymion,  and  leads 
him  into  a  deep  cave  in  the  wild  place,  where  he 
falls  asleep;  and  Death  and  Life  flit  through  the 
cave,  like  wingless  boys,  crying  '  Away,  he  is  not  of 
our  crew ' ;  that  is,  not  of  the  life  nor  of  the  death 
which  rule  the  actual  world.  At  last  he  is  awaked 
from  sleep — from  a  sleep  which  is  a  sleep  in  a  dream, 
and  which,  in  the  dream,  has  its  own  dreams — by 
Emily  coming  through  the  wood  which  springs  into 
life  before  her,  passing  from  naked  winter  to  soft 
summer. 

The  imagery  then  changes  again,  and  he  paints 
himself  as  a  great  earth,  a  world  of  love,  with  fruits 
and  flowers,  billows,  mists,  and  storms  and  skies, 

1  He  repeats  the  thought  in  the  Adonais  : 

And  his  own  thoughts,  along  that  rugged  way, 
Pursued,  like  raging  hounds,  their  father  and  their  prey. 

And  the  thought  is  taken  from  Wordsworth — 

And  his  own  mind  did  like  a  tempest  strong 

Come  to  him  thus,  and  drove  the  weary  wight  along. 


EPIPSYCHIDION  199 

ruled  by  twin  spheres  of  light,  by  moon  and  sun,  by 
Mary  and  by  Emily — each  embodying  for  him 
phases  and  powers  of  the  Absolute  Beauty.  Let 
others  also  come,  he  cries,  and  add  their  powers, 
and  be  other  shapes  of  Beauty  whom  also  I  may 
love. 

We  read  all  this  vaguely,  and  with  vague  pleasure. 
It  is  too  changing,  too  indefinite  in  thought  to  give 
a  high  intellectual  pleasure,  and  it  is  too  far  removed 
into  a  world  of  fancy  to  awaken  personal  passion,  or 
to  interest  us  by  its  emotion.  But  the  curious  thing 
is  that  if  we  try  to  see  the  landscape  or  the  images 
that  move  through  it,  both  landscape  and  images, 
though  they  are  only  symbolic,  are  really  definite. 
The  places  can  be  seen,  described,  could  be  painted. 
Shelley  has  looked  upon  them,  and  put  down  clearly 
what  he  saw.  This  is  creation,  and  a  kind  of  it 
which  we  do  not  meet  in  the  work  of  other  poets. 
We  may  call  it  useless,  but  it  gives  us  pleasure. 
We  also  see  it  as  Shelley  saw  it.  But  if  there  had 
been  more  passion  in  it,  if  the  thought  desired  to 
be  expressed  had  been  more  intense  in  Shelley's 
mind,  the  creation  would  have  been  still  clearer, 
would  not  have  been  so  mixed  with  foreign  matter. 
The  symbols  used  would  not  then  change  so  often, 
the  vision  would  be  more  at  unity  with  itself.  Our 
pleasure  would  not  be  so  mingled,  nor  should  we 
be  forced  to  give  so  much  study  to  disentangle  a 
web  of  emotion  and  thought  and  memory,  which, 
when  we  have  disentangled  it,  does  not  quite  seem 
as  if  it  were  worth  the  trouble  which  we  take. 


200  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

But  now  matters  change.  The  imagination  in 
Shelley  has  been  warmed  by  the  work  it  has  done, 
even  though  that  work  is  not  of  the  best.  He  has 
also  got  rid  of  confusion,  of  side  issues,  of  memories 
he  thought  right  to  introduce,  of  things  he  thought 
it  best  to  conciliate.  One  thought  alone  remains 
now.  It  has  emerged  clear  from  all  the  rest  and  is 
their  mistress.  The  moment  Shelley  grasps  it  and 
isolates  it  vividly,  his  imagination  rushes  into  it 
alone  ;  all  his  emotion  collects  around  it,  and  the 
rest  of  the  poem  is  as  luminous  as  the  previous  part 
is  obscure.  It  is  with  Shelley  as  with  all  artists  who 
are  worthy  of  the  name — as  emotion  deepens  clear- 
ness deepens. 

The  day  is  come  and  thou  wilt  fly  with  me 

begins  the  close.  Mary,  Emily,  all  the  rest,  have 
passed  away ;  and  Shelley  is  alone,  in  perfect  peace, 
with  the  living  image  of  his  own  soul,  with  his  being 
of  absolute  Beauty.  A  splendid  passage  about  love, 
closely  knit,  the  metaphors  hand  in  hand,  introduces 
the  new  theme  of  his  flight  to  the  island  with  her 
who  is  the  soul  out  of  his  soul.  And  then  we  possess 
the  creation  of  the  island  of  imagination,  of  himself 
as  Love,  of  Emily  as  absolute  Beauty,  of  their  life 
with  one  another  in  absolute  joy,  of  their  imperish- 
able union  in  passion.  This  is  the  vision  to  which 
all  the  rest  has  led.  It  is  clear,  simple,  astonishingly 
bright  in  the  sunlight  of  thought,  in  the  sunlight  of 
feeling.  It  is  realised  to  the  smallest  detail.  The 
landscape   is   luminous,  set  in  pellucid  air,  and  is 


EPIPSYCHIDION  201 

wholly  at  unity  with  itself.  Every  touch  increases 
the  impression,  and  I  think  it  is,  in  its  own  super- 
sensual  world,  the  most  beautiful  thing — for  pure 
beauty — which  exists  in  that  type  of  English 
poetry.  It  is  not  sublime,  it  is  not  on  the  highest 
range  of  poetry,  it  is  not  of  that  primal  emotion 
which  redeems  the  heart  from  the  world,  but  it  is  of 
an  exquisite  and  solitary  loveliness.  And  it  runs 
without  a  break  in  its  beauty  to  a  noble  end,  to  a 
perfect  climax — to  that  fine  and  spiritual  reality  of 
passion,  which  is,  when  it  is  pure  of  self,  the  last 
summit  of  human  joy  and  peace  to  which  we  attain 
in  life. 


KEATS 

John  Keats,  though  of  the  same  date  as  Shelley, 
is  not  of  the  same  time  in  the  world  of  poetry,  and 
the  resting-places  of  the  two  poets  are  no  unfitting 
symbol  of  that  truth.  The  grave  of  Shelley  lies 
close  set  in  a  hollow  of  the  ancient  city-wall,  in  the 
Protestant  graveyard  at  Rome.  Around  it  the 
trees  have  grown  up  for  many  years,  and  the  paths 
that  divide  the  terraces  have  been  established  of  old. 
But  Keats  lies  under  his  own  field  flowers,  about  a 
bowshot  from  the  grave  of  Shelley,  where  no  ruins 
touch  his  stone  as  the  Aurelian  wall  touches  the 
ashes  of  Shelley.  There  are  no  ancient  cypresses 
near,  no  well-worn  paths,  no  sense  of  old-world 
quietude  such  as  hallows  with  tenderness  a  place 
where  the  dead  have  lain  for  many  years.  The 
wild  soft  grass  is  there,  but  the  grass  is  always 
young,  and  does  not  tell,  like  the  cypresses  that 
shadow  Shelley,  of  growth  and  of  decay,  of  ex- 
perience and  pain.  It  fitly  enwraps  the  grave  of  a 
poet  who  has  in  his  poetry  no  special  note  of  any 
age,  or  if  of  any,  of  ours  more  than  of  his  own. 
Endymion^  Hyperion^  the  Ode  to  a  Grecian  Urtty 
Isabella^  have  no  political,  religious,  social  elements 

202 


KEATS  20;^' 

such  as  In  Wordsworth,  Shelley,  Byron,  or  Cole- 
ridge tell  us  at  once  when  the  poems  were  written. 
Shelley  lived  and  wrote  with  Keats,  but  there  is  a 
distance  between  them  as  there  is  between  their 
graves,  as  great  difference  between  the  spirit  of 
their  poetry  as  there  is  between  the  natural  scenery 
that  encompasses  their  resting-places. 

Moreover,  all  the  poets  of  Keats's  own  time  were 
influenced  by  the  political  and  social  aims  which 
were  forced  into  actuality  in  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. The  ideas  that  awoke  the  youthful  passion  of 
Wordsworth,  of  Coleridge,  that  stirred  the  wrath 
of  Scott,  that  worked  like  yeast  in  Byron  and 
brought  forth  new  matter,  that  Shelley  reclothed 
and  made  into  a  prophecy  of  the  future — the  ex- 
citement, the  turmoil,  the  life  and  death  struggle 
which  gathered  round  the  Revolution — were  ignored 
and  unrepresented  by  Keats.  Their  poetry  spoke 
of  man  ;  of  his  destiny,  and  his  wrongs,  his  rights, 
duties  and  hopes  ;  it  is  poetry  not  only  for  the 
sake  of  the  art,  but  also  poetry  for  the  sake  of  the 
human  race.  It  has  an  end  beyond  the  pure  artist 
end,  and  that  end  had  its  ground  in  the  primary 
ideas  of  the  Revolution. 

In  Shelley  that  was  for  the  first  time  partly  modi- 
fied. Half  his  poetry  is  divided  from  this  excite- 
ment around  the  cause  and  interests  of  mankind,  and 
written  for  himself  alone.  It  is  art  in  love  with  art. 
And  the  strange  thing  is  true  that  in  this  man,  in 
whom  the  spirit  of  the  Revolution  flamed  highest, 
began  the    death  in  poetry  of  that  fiery  impulse. 


204  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

There  is  an  impassable  gulf  between  the  Prometheus 
Unbound  and  Epipsychidion^  and  the  air  of  the  one 
is  unbreathable  by  the  other. 

But  in  Keats  the  ideas  of  the  Revolution  have  dis- 
appeared. He  has,  in  spite  of  a  few  passages  and 
till  quite  the  end  of  his  career,  no  vital  interest  in  the 
present,  none  in  jnan  as  a  whole,  none  in  the  political 
movement  of  human  thought,  none  in  the  future 
of  mankind,  none  in  liberty,  equality,  or  fraternity, 
no  interest  in  anything  but  beauty.  And  of  all 
the  religious  and  theological  questions,  of  the  lives 
of  the  poor,  of  education  and  class  divisions,  of  the 
nature  of  the  soul  and  whence  it  derived  truth, 
of  its  relation  to  the  natural  world,  of  duty  to  our 
fellow-men,  of  whether  materialism  or  idealism  were 
true,  of  God  in  his  relation  to  man,  of  God  in 
nature — questions  which  one  and  all  were  vital  to 
Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Byron,  and  Shelley,  and 
afterwards  to  Tennyson,  Browning,  arid  Arnold, 
which,  though  not  discussed  as  doctrines,  yet  water 
like  rivers  all  the  landscape  of  their  work — there  is, 
in  spite  of  a  few  vague  aspirations,  not  one  solitary 
trace  in  Keats.  It  is  not  that  they  are  consciously 
laid  aside,  it  is  as  if  they  had  never  existed  in  the 
world.  The  human  passion  of  the  Prometheus  Un^ 
bound  was  in  his  ears.  It  fell  upon  them  as  unheard 
as  the  war  trumpets  of  earth  are  by  the  angels  in 
heaven. 

Once,  in  his  first  volume,  he  hopes  in  poetry  to 
*  find  the  agonies,  the  strife  of  human  hearts,'  but  the 
hope  has  no  result  in  his  work.     Then,  later  on,  it 


KEATS  205 

seems  to  occur  to  him  that  he  is  living  in  a  world  of 
fevered  thought  and  pain.  It  was  so  when  he  wrote 
upon  the  Nightingale,  for  a  vague  heartache  then 
beset  him,  and  he  realised  that  the  world  was 
troubled.  But  then  his  impulse  was  to  fly  from  it 
all— to  drink  of  Hippocrene,  and  leave  the  world 
unseen,  and  with  the  nightingale  fade  away  into  the 
forest  dim. 

lie  ade  far  away,  dissolve,  and  quite  forget 

What  thou  among  the  leaves  hast  never  known, 
The  weariness,  the  fever,  and  the  fret 

Here,  where  men  sit  and  hear  each  other  groan ; 
Where  palsy  shakes  a  few,  sad,  last  grey  hairs, 

Where  youth  grows  pale,  and  spectre-thin,  and  dies ; 
Where  but  to  think  is  to  be  full  of  sorrow 
And  leaden-eyed  despairs. 
Where  Beauty  cannot  keep  her  lustrous  eyes. 
Or  new  Love  pine  at  them  beyond  to-morrow. 

That  was  his  temper,  and  this  is  the  strange  new 
position  of  Keats,  as  a  poet,  in  relation  to  the 
impulse  of  the  Revolution.  That  impulse  is  dead 
in  Keats. 

The  reason  of  this  remarkable  change,  this  isola- 
tion of  Keats,  even  from  his  close  contemporaries 
Byron  and  Shelley,  was  that  he  unconsciously  felt, 
as  they  did  not,  that  the  ideas  on  which  the  world 
had  lived  since  1789  were,  in  that  form,  exhausted. 
No  high  spiritual  or  political  emotion  of  any  kind 
came  to  him  out  of  the  heart  of  the  people,  for 
there  was  no  such  emotion  in  England.  After 
Waterloo,  when  he  began  to  write,  the  country  had 
sunk  into  a  mean  or  a  sullen  materialism.      When 


2o6  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

the  wave  of  the  Revolution  ebbed,  the  ship  of 
Imagination  was  stranded  on  the  shore  of  apathy. 
The  middle  class  In  England  was  excited  enough 
about  getting  on,  about  wealth  and  comfort ;  the 
poor  were  excited  by  starvation  and  oppression,  but 
the  old  days  when  all  Europe  was  young  in  thought, 
when  men  lived  by  Ideal  hopes,  when  even  the  poor 
dreamed  dreams,  when  faith  was  Infinite,  when 
Wordsworth  saw  the  new-born  world  bathed  In 
dawn — were  dead  and  gone.  And  Keats  turned 
from  it  all  with  scorn  and  took  refuge  in  the 
Ideas  and  the  beauty  of  the  past.  It  Is  true  that 
Scott  did  likewise,  while  he  was  a  poet ;  but  he  did 
it  for  a  dijfFerent  reason  and  in  another  temper. 
Shelley  wrote  alongside  of  Keats,  but  he  was  out  of 
England,  and  did  not  realise  the  degradation  of  his 
country  creeping,  like  a  murderous  sleep,  into  his 
soul.  He  felt  It,  but  he  felt  It  as  an  excitement, 
because  it  awakened  hatred  of  It  In  his  heart.  He 
had  the  power  to  abhor  It  and  voice  his  abhorrence, 
because  he  saw  it  from  a  distance.  Unlike  Keats, 
he  could  still  write  about  the  Interests  of  humanity, 
but  they  were  not  Its  present,  but  Its  future  Interests. 
When  he  touched  on  the  present  he  touched  It  with 
wrath  as  of  fire.  He  did  what  he  could  to  destroy 
it,  and  he  painted  its  overthrow  and  the  rebirth  of 
man,  through  its  doom,  into  a  new  life.  But  had 
he  lived  In  England  he  might  have,  like  Keats, 
Ignored  the  whole  of  the  society  in  which  he  lived, 
and  set  aside  all  the  past.  This  Is  what  Keats 
did.     Unable   to  endure  the  lifelessness,  the  ugll- 


KEATS  207 

ness,  the  meanness  of  his  time,  he  turned  his  back 
on  it  and  sought  the  glory  that  he  needed  in  the 
storied  days  of  old  Romance,  in  the  far-off  loveli- 
ness of  Greece.  Here  is  the  sonnet  with  which  he 
prefaces  his  first  volume  of  poems.  We  hear  how  he 
strikes,  in  the  very  first  line,  the  note  of  his  sorrow. 

Glory  and  loveliness  have  passed  away ; 

For  if  we  wander  out  in  early  morn, 

No  wreathed  incense  do  we  see  upborne 
Into  the  East,  to  meet  the  smiling  day ; 
No  crowd  of  nymphs  soft-voic'd  and  young  and  gay, 

In  woven  baskets  bringing  ears  of  corn, 

Roses,  and  pinks,  and  violets,  to  adorn 
The  shrine  of  Flora  in  her  early  May. 
But  there  are  left  delights  as  high  as  these, 

And  I  shall  ever  bless  my  destiny. 
That  in  a  time,  when  under  pleasant  trees 

Pan  is  no  longer  sought,  I  feel  a  free, 
A  leafy  luxury,  seeing  I  could  please 

With  these  poor  offerings  a  man  like  thee. 

The  poems  that  followed  are  steeped  in  his  own 
delight  in  nature,  in  the  visions  of  Greek  life,  in 
mediaeval  tales.  The  past  is  all  in  all,  the  present 
England  has  vanished  away.  The  year  after  this 
volume  he  published  Endymion — '  the  stretched 
metre  of  an  antique  song.'  The  induction  to  the 
poem  proclaims  again  his  revolt  from  the  world  of 
commonplace  in  which  he  lives,  and  he  resolves  to  find 
beauty  far  away  since  it  cannot  be  found  near  at  hand. 

Spite  of  despondence,  of  the  inhuman  dearth 
Of  noble  natures,  of  the  gloomy  days. 
Of  all  the  unhealthy  and  o'erdarkened  ways 
Made  for  our  searching : 


2o8  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

there  is  one  thing,  he  concludes,  which  remains, 
^  A  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  for  ever ;  Its  loveliness 
increases.'  There  is  my  hope,  mine,  and  the  hope 
of  all  who  live  in  these  inhuman  days.  Where  shall 
he  seek  and  find  it  ?  and  he  answers,  ^  in  the  love- 
liness of  pure  Nature  ;  in  the  great  tragic  stories 
of  the  world,  acted  when  the  world  was  great ;  in 
all  the  fair  and  chivalrous  tales  of  love  and  fate  and 
beauty ' ; 

yes,  in  spite  of  all, 
y    Some  shape  of  beauty  moves  away  the  pall 

From  our  dark  spirits.     Such  the  sun,  the  moon, 
Trees  old,  and  young,  sprouting  a  shady  boon 
For  simple  sheep ;  and  such  are  daffodils 
With  the  green  world  they  live  in ;  and  clear  rills 
That  for  themselves  a  cooling  covert  make 
'Gainst  the  hot  season  ;  the  mid-forest  brake, 
Rich  with  a  sprinkling  of  fair  musk-rose  blooms : 
And  such,  too,  is  the  grandeur  of  the  dooms 
We  have  imagined  for  the  mighty  dead ; 
AlMovely  tales  that  we  have  heard  or  read : 
An  endless  fountain  of  immortal  drink, 
Pouring  unto  us  from  the  heaven's  brink. 

This,  then,  was  his  fir§t  pursuit — the  soul  of  all  his 
poetry.  *  With  a  great  poet,'  he  says,  '  the  sense  of 
beauty  overcomes  every  other  consideration.' 

Indeed,  the  poet  does  not  think  as  he  writes  of  any 
other  thing  than  the  joy  he  is  receiving  from  the  tide 
of  beauty  which,  flowing  through  his  senses,  awakens 
in  his  heart  emotions  so  creative  that  they  become 
ideas  ;  and  these  ideas,  mingling  musically  together, 
become  one  ideal ;  and  this,  his  energy,  now  glowing 
all  through  with  feeling,  embodies  at  once  in  form. 


KEATS  :?  1,      209 

Then,  immediately,  the  poem  is  incarnate.  Nor  does 
he  propose  any  end  to  himself  except  the  embodiment 
of  his  pleasure.  It  is  only  afterwards,  when  the  poem 
is  made,  that  he  desires  that  his  pleasure  should  be 
vital  for  others,  and  hopes  to  find  his  own  pleasure 
sent  back  to  him  by  the  sympathy  of  his  fellow-men. 
But  that  is  an  afterthought.  At  the  moment  of 
delightful  creation  he  has  lost  himself,  the  world, 
fame,  the  desire  for  sympathy,  in  the  ravishment  of 
beauty  and  its  emotion.  And  Keats  is  accurately 
true  to  himself  when  he  says :  *  I  feel  assured  I 
should  write  from  the  mere  yearning  and  fondness 
for  the  beautiful,  even  if  my  night's  labours  should 
be  burned  every  morning.'  Nor  was  it  Beauty  in 
this  or  that  particular  form  that  he  worshipped. 
He  loved  it  in  the  flower  and  in  the  cloud,  but  he 
loved  it  in  each  thing  as  a  part  only  of  the  Universal 
Beauty,  which  itself,  one  and  infinite,  abode  in  all 
things — *  the  mighty  abstract  idea  of  Beauty,'  as  he 
calls  it.  With  this  his  heart  was  filled,  his  loneli- 
ness peopled.  No  wonder  he  escaped  from  the 
meanness  of  the  world,  for  this  is  how  he  described 
his  life :  '  I  feel  more  and  more  every  day  as  my 
imagination  strengthens  that  I  do  not  live  in  this 
world  alone,  but  in  a  thousand  worlds.  No  sooner 
am  I  alone  than  shapes  of  epic  greatness  are 
stationed  round  me,  and  serve  my  spirit  the  office 
of  a  King's  body-guard.  Then  tragedy  with 
sceptered  pall  comes  sweeping  by,  and  according  to 
my  state  of  mind,  I  am  with  Achilles  shouting  in  the 
trenches  or  with  Theocritus  in  the  vales  of  Sicily/ 


2IO  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

But  there  was  another  trouble  from  which  he 
freed  himself.  It  was  the  trouble  which  the  condi- 
tion of  things  in  the  world  gave  the  poets  them- 
selves. The  condition  was  always  there,  though  its 
badness  was  intensified  in  the  days  of  Keats.  It  had 
many  forms.  Wordsworth  called  it  the  heavy  and 
the  weary  weight  of  this  unintelligible  world.  In 
musing  on  the  sorrowful  problems  of  life  Coleridge 
lost  his  early  joy.  Man  as  the  sport  of  fate  or  the 
victim  of  God  became  the  object  of  the  bitter  con- 
tempt of  Byron.  Shelley  was  tormented  day  and 
night  because  of  evil.  That  was  part  of  the  woe, 
and  Keats  threw  it  all  overboard  at  the  beginning 
of  his  poetic  life.  All  I  need  to  know,  he  said,  is 
Beauty.  It  is  not  all  we  need  to  know  ;  but  when 
we  are  utterly  wearied,  despondent  and  embittered, 
it  is  a  good  thing  to  lead  us  into  the  sorrowless 
land  of  beauty,  and  Keats,  even  now,  brings  to 
us  that  blessed  healing  and  refreshment. 

It  is  true  that  in  the  earlier  poems  there  are 
many  passages  which  tell  us  that  the  fate  of 
humanity,  and  mortal  sorrows  and  joys,  touched  the 
mind  of  Keats.  He  felt  that  he  ought,  as  he  grew 
into  fuller  prophecy,  to  take  them  as  his  subject  and 
be  passionately  involved  in  them.  But  this  was  in 
the  future.  At  present  his  life  was  elsewhere,  in 
the  pursuit  of  loveliness.  Even  when,  as  in  Endy- 
mion,  he  glances  at  the  sad  fates  of  men,  it  is  but  a 
glance,  and  he  passes  on  his  way  to  range  the  woods 
with  Cynthia. 

Two  other  elements  in  the  condition  of  their  world 


KEATS  211 

irritated  the  poets.  One  was  that  modern  science 
had  deprived  nature  of  beauty  by  depriving  it  of  life. 
The  other  was  that  worldliness  of  heart  had  robbed 
men  of  the  child's  unconscious  love  of  the  loveliness 
of  the  universe.  And  the  poets,  like  Keats,  had  fled 
to  Greece  to  find  the  divine  element  of  life  and  of 
childhood  in  the  world.  Goethe  cried  out  in  the 
midst  of  German  dulness  for  the  classic  world. 
But  he  was  himself  too  fresh  not  to  be  above  too 
great  a  regret  for  it.  The  regret  in  him  was  tran- 
sient, and  only  gave  him  a  strong  emotion  which  he 
turned  into  an  additional  power  of  enjoying  the 
present,  as  every  morning  created  it  afresh  for  his 
enchantment.  But  Schiller  was  not  like  him.  In 
his  youth  regret  for  the  vanished  beauty  of  the 
Greek  world,  where  all  was  life,  was  pre-eminent. 
'  Where  art  thou,  lovely  world,'  he  cries  in  the  Gods 
of  Greece.      ^  Return  again, 

Schone  Welt,  wo  bist  du?  Kehre  wieder, 
Holdes  Bliithenalter  der  Natur  ! 
Ach,  nur  in  dem  Feenland  der  Lieder 
Lebt  noch  deine  fabelhafte  Spur. 
Ausgestorben  trauert  das  Gefilde, 
Keine  Gottheit  zeigt  sich  meinem  Blick. 
Ach,  von  jenem  lebenwarmen  Bilde 
Blieb  der  Schatten  nur  zuriick. 

Wordsworth,  even  Wordsworth,  breaks  out  once, 
impassioned  with  distress,  because  nothing  we  see  in 
nature  is  ours,  because  we  are  out  of  tune  with  her 
beauty,  into  his  Pagan  cry : 


212  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

O  God,  I  M  rather  be 
A  pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn ; 
So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 
Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn  ; 
Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea, 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn. 

There  were  moments  in  which  the  poets  of  that  time 
longed  for  the  vital  universe  of  the  Greek.  Keats 
took  all  these  moments,  and  made  them  into  that 
which  they  regretted.  The  other  poets  mourned  a 
death  in  nature  ;  but  Keats  thought,  There  is  no 
need  to  mourn  ;  Nature  is  not  dead  but  alive.  The 
living  world  is  at  our  doors.  What  the  Greek  felt 
we  may  feel.  And  so  vigorous  was  his  ardour  that 
when  he  drew  close  to  this  life  he  was  drawn 
into  it  and  clasped  its  joy  and  beauty.  He 
did  not  reproduce  it.  Endymion  is  not  Greek,  nor 
Lamia^  nor  Hyperion.  But  he  won  its  temper,  the 
temper  of  the  divine  childhood  of  the  world.  He 
forgot  the  weary  and  the  heavy  weight  of  the  unin- 
telligible, and  dwelling  in  the  absolute  beauty  lived 
and  breathed  in  joy. 

We  may  trace  this  daily  companionship  with 
beauty  through  his  poetry  of  nature.  We  must  not 
say  that  Keats's  work  on  natural  scenery  was  at  all 
like  the  work  of  the  Greeks  upon  it.  It  differs, 
from  the  outside,  in  almost  every  way.  But  the 
temper  of  the  soul  with  which  he  looked  on  nature 
had  all  the  simplicity,  and  the  same  feelings  of  joy 
and  worship  wrought  together,  which  a  young  Athen- 
ian might  have  had  before  Socrates  came  among 


KEATS  213 

the  youths  to  disturb  their  life  by  urging  them  to 
the  pursuit  of  knowledge  of  themselves.  Such  a 
youth  moved  in  a  living  world,  and  everything  that 
lived  in  it  was  lovely  and  might  speak  to  him.  It 
was  no  mere  ball  of  fire  which  then  the  young  man 
saw  when  he  looked  on  the  rising  of  the  sun  from 
the  Acropolis,  but  Apollo  himself,  burning  in  his 
car  with  ardour,  and  driving  the  tameless  steeds. 
It  was  no  dead  volcanic  world  he  saw  when  the 
moon  sailed  through  the  sky,  but  the  goddess  of  the 
silver  bow  on  her  way  to  kiss  Endymion.  At  any 
moment,  as  he  walked  among  the  olives  and  the  oaks, 
he  might  meet  Pan  with  his  '  sweet  pipings '  and 
all  the  choir  of  fauns.  From  every  tree  under  whose 
shade  he  slept  at  noon,  from  every  brook  where  he 
drank  at  eve,  the  dryad  or  the  naiad  might  come 
forth,  and  the  immortal  knit  relation  to  the  mortal. 

And  this  very  temper,  half  worship,  half  joy,  and 
both  in  a  thrill  of  hourly  expectation  of  the  birth  of 
the  wonderful ;  this  living  sensibility,  this  power  of 
seeing  all  things  with  a  child's  amazement  and  for- 
getfulness,  was  the  temper  of  Keats  when  he  was 
with  nature.  It  is  not  so  much  the  temper  of  any 
other  of  the  poets. 

If  sometimes,  when  he  has  mingled  thought  with 
nature,  he  is  a  little  out  of  his  unconscious  world 
with  her,  even  then  he  will  not  have  anything  to  do 
with  the  persons  who  philosophise  about  her,  who 
ask  questions  about  her  life.  Then  he  is  like, 
not  Socrates,  but  the  transient  mood  in  which 
Socrates  was  when  Phaedrus  brought  him  to  that 


214  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

pleasant  place  by  the  Ilissus.  Some  one  has  talked 
to  Socrates,  as  the  sun-theory  persons  might  talk  to 
one  of  us,  of  the  rationalising  explanation  of  the 
legends  of  nature. 

'  My  dear  Phaedrus,'  Socrates  answers,  '  I  quite 
acknowledge  that  these  explanations  are  very  nice, 
but  he  is  not  to  be  envied  who  gives  them.  And  if 
he  is  sceptical  about  the  marvels  of  nature,  and 
would  fain  reduce  them  all  to  the  laws  of  probability, 
this  sort  of  crude  philosophy  will  take  up  all  his 
time.  I  must  first  know  myself,  therefore  I  say 
farewell  to  all  this.  The  common  opinion  is  enough 
for  me.' 

And  though  Socrates  does  not  care  for  the  trees 
and  the  country,  and  would  rather  be  in  towns  where 
men,  his  teachers,  live,  yet  when  he  is  brought  to 
the  reposeful  spot  near  the  Ilissus,  his  enjoyment  of 
it,  and  his  readiness  to  accept  the  popular  feeling 
about  the  nymphs,  would  have  delighted  Keats. 
Moreover,  the  first  sentences  both  of  Socrates  and 
Phaedrus  are  like  a  piece  out  of  one  of  the  poems  of 
Keats. 

*  The  little  stream,'  says  Phaedrus,  *  is  delightfully 
clear  and  bright ;  I  can  fancy  that  there  might  be 
maidens  playing  near.'  'Yes,  indeed,'  answers  So- 
crates, '  and  a  fair  and  shady  resting-place,  full  of 
summer  sounds  and  scents.  There  is  the  lofty  and 
spreading  plane  tree,  and  the  agnus  castus,  high  and 
clustering,  in  the  fullest  blossom,  and  the  greatest 
fragrance  ;  and  the  stream  which  flows  beneath  the 
plane  tree  is  deliciously  cold  to  the  feet.     Judging 


KEATS  215 

from  the  ornaments  and  images  this  must  be  a  spot 
sacred  to  Achelous  and  the  nymphs.  Moreover, 
there  is  a  sweet  breeze,  and  the  grasshoppers  chir- 
rup, and  the  greatest  charm  of  all  is  the  grass,  like 
a  pillow  gently  sloping  to  the  head.  My  dear  Phae- 
drus,  you  have  been  an  admirable  guide.' 

Keats  might  have  said  it  all  ;  it  is  the  note  of 
his  younger  poetry  about  nature.  The  description 
breathes  enjoyment  from  every  word,  not  intense 
enjoyment,  but  the  frank,  child-like  pleasure  of  that 
everyday  life  which  saw  beauty  immediately,  never 
missed  it,  was  its  common  companion  and  lover  ; 
and  therefore,  since  beauty  was  never  strange,  did 
not  lose,  through  intoxication  with  it,  the  use  of 
intelligence  or  the  powers  of  the  soul. 

It  was  a  temper,  in  Keats,  of  unruffled  pleasure, 
a  sensitive,  girl-like,  sensuous  pleasure  in  beauty, 
and  in  the  consolation  of  beauty  to  the  soul ;  a 
pleasure  which  loved  also  to  have  the  body  comfort- 
able while  the  soul  enjoyed,  so  that  all  things  might 
be  in  harmony.  When  Socrates  speaks  of  the  grass 
softly  sloping  like  a  pillow  for  his  head,  of  the 
delicious  coolness  of  the  stream  to  the  feet — we 
not  only  listen  to  a  Greek,  we  listen  to  Keats.  It 
was  also  a  temper  in  him  which,  freed  from  the 
religious  and  philosophical  troubles  of  men,  could 
play  with  nature.  He  had  a  way  of  fluttering, 
^  butterfly-fashion,  from  one  object  to  another,  touch- 
ing for  the  moment  the  momentary  charm  of  each 
thing — the  work  of  fancy  who  *  is  never  at  home.' 
There  is  a  passage  in  one  of  his  earliest  poems  where 


2i6  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

he  lingers  on  the  bridge  above  the  stream,  and  with 
the  quick  glancing  eyes  of  a  faun  that  waits  for  a 
nymph  in  lazy  pleasure,  notices  minutely  all  things, 
or  rather,  lets  all  things  flit  in  and  out  of  his  brain ; 
not  caring  to  ask  any  to  stay  and  keep  him  com- 
pany, but  pleased  with  them  and  this  game  of  life 
— enjoyment  without  thought,  or  thought  its  own 
enjoyment. 

Ever  let  the  Fancy  roam, 

Pleasure  never  is  at  home  : 

At  a  touch  sweet  Pleasure  melteth, 

Like  to  bubbles  when  rain  pelteth ; 

Then  let  winged  Fancy  wander 

Through  the  thought  still  spread  beyond  her : 

Open  wide  the  mind's  cage  door, 

She  '11  dart  forth,  and  cloudward  soar. 

O  sweet  Fancy !  let  her  loose. 

That  is  often  his  temper.  It  is  not  the  temper 
of  the  deeper  imagination.  That  is  grave  and 
penetrative,  and,  when  the  game  of  fancy  ceased  to 
please  him,  its  power  was  active  in  Keats,  through 
all  his  intercourse  with  nature.  It  uses  the  work  of 
fancy  to  decorate  the  ineffable  landscape  it  creates — 
the  landscape  the  soul  sees  underneath  that  which 
the  eye  beholds — but  itself  goes  home  to  humanity 
in  the  midst  of  nature,  and  to  nature  in  the  midst 
of  humanity.  Here  is  a  verse  in  the  Ode  to  Psyche 
in  which  the  imagination,  sounding  its  incom- 
municable depths,  moves  like  a  creative  spirit ;  in 
which  the  mind  of  man  and  the  soul  of  the  natural 
world  are  woven  together  ;  and  at  the  last,  to  warm 


KEATS  217 

and  soften  all,  human  passion  arises  to  vitalise  the 
whole. 


Yes,  I  will  be  thy  priest,  and  build  a  fane 

In  some  untrodden  region  of  my  mind, 
Where  branched  thoughts,  new-grown  with  pleasant  pain, 

Instead  of  pines  shall  murmur  in  the  wind : 
Far,  far  around  shall  those  dark-clustered  trees 

Fledge  the  wild-ridged  mountains  steep  by  steep ; 
And  there  by  zephyrs,  streams,  and  birds,  and  bees. 

The  moss-lain  Dryads  shall  be  lulled  to  sleep ; 
And  in  the  midst  of  this  wide  quietness 
A  rosy  sanctuary  will  I  dress 
With  the  wreath'd  trellis  of  a  working  brain, 

With  buds,  and  bells,  and  stars  without  a  name, 
With  all  the  gardener  Fancy  e'er  could  feign. 

Who  breeding  flowers,  will  never  breed  the  same  : 
And  there  shall  be  for  thee  all  soft  delight 

That  shadowy  thought  can  win, 
A  bright  torch,  and  a  casement  ope  at  night 

To  let  the  warm  Love  in  ! 

When  he  had  finished  with  En^mion,  when  the 
trouble  of  the  world  had  come  upon  him,  when  he 
had  seen  his  brother  die,  and  felt  himself  that  life  was 
Ill-made  for  him,  his  note  towards  nature  changes. 
It  is  mixed  with  sorrow,  but  it  is  sorrow  which  is 
impassioned  to  lose  itself  in  joy,  which  remembers 
the  times  of  self-forgetfulness,  and  urges  him  to 
escape.  *  Leave  me  behind,'  cries  sorrow,  ^  escape 
for  your  life  into  joy.'  And  Keats  obeys  ;  flies  to 
nature  and  her  loveliness,  and  for  a  time  succeeds 
In  forgetting;  then  the  note  of  pain  falls  in  again, 
and  again  he  forgets  it,  and  again  remembers,  and 


2i8  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

again  forgets — till  the  alternating  passion  is  worn 
out  and  all  the  mixed  music  dies. 

This  is  the  spirit  which  informs  the  Ode  to  a 
Nightingale.  That  ode  is  far  more  beautiful,  be- 
cause more  human,  than  the  earlier  poems  of  nature. 
The  beginning  is  full  of  sensibility  to  human  pain. 
He  would  quite  forget  what  the  nightingale  had 
never  known  among  the  leaves — 

The  weariness,  the  fever,  and  the  fret 

Here,  where  men  sit  and  hear  each  other  groan ; 

— forget  it  on  the  '  viewless  wings  of  poesy,'  in  the 
tender  night,  in  the  green  depths  of  the  woods, 
among 

The  grass,  the  thicket,  and  the  fruit-tree  wild ; 
White  hawthorn,  and  the  pastoral  eglantine ; 
Fast-fading  violets  cover'd  up  in  leaves. 

But  his  desire  to  escape  from  this,  on  which  I  have 
already  dwelt,  is  not  now  strong  enough  to  conquer 
the  siege  of  the  world's  sorrow.  The  trouble , 
returns,  the  song  of  the  bird  makes  him  half  in  love 
with  easeful  death.  Had  he  been  as  gay  as  of  old, 
he  would  not  have  thought  it,  as  he  does  now, 
'  rich  to  die,' 

To  cease  upon  the  midnight  with  no  pain. 

But  he  was  changed  ;  the  new  sensibility  to  love  and 
pain  deepens  the  colour,  strengthens  the  thought 
and  passion,  of  his  nature  poetry.  It  has  entered 
into  the  flitting  delight  in  beauty,  and  makes  the 
description  of  nature  more   close,    more    sensitive, 


UNIVERSITY   I 


KEATS  219 


more  imaginatively  heard  and  seen  than  anything  he 
has  written  in  the  earlier  poems.  Take  the  two  last 
verses  of  the  Ode  to  a  Nightingale  : 

Thou  wast  not  born  for  death,  immortal  Bird  ! 

No  hungry  generations  tread  thee  down ; 
The  voice  I  hear  this  passing  night  was  heard 

In  ancient  days  by  emperor  and  clown : 
Perhaps  the  self-same  song  that  found  a  path 

Through  the  sad  heart  of  Ruth,  when,  sick  for  home, 
She  stood  in  tears  amid  the  alien  corn ; 
The  same  that  oft-times  hath 
Charm'd  magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn. 

Forlorn  !   the  very  word  is  like  a  bell 

To  toll  me  back  from  thee  to  my  sole  self! 
Adieu !   the  fancy  cannot  cheat  so  well 
As  she  is  fam'd  to  do,  deceiving  elf! 
Adieu !   adieu  !   thy  plaintive  anthem  fades 
Past  the  near  meadows,  over  the  still  stream. 
Up  the  hill-side ;  and  now  'tis  buried  deep 
In  the  next  valley-glades  : 
Was  it  a  vision,  or  a  waking  dream  ? 

Fled  is  that  music  : — do  I  wake  or  sleep  ? 

How  different  it  is  !  This  is  no  butterfly  work, 
flying  from  one  thing  to  another,  always  tasting, 
never  resting.  Keats  and  the  nightingale  are  one  ; 
it  is  his  soul  that  sings  in  the  bird,  his  music  that 
passes  away  over  the  hill.  Into  nature  has  now, 
penetrated  the  tragedy  of  man.  Yet  it  was  not  for 
long.  The  passion  was  deep  while  it  lasted,  but 
it  seemed  to  him  unworthy  of  the  manifold  ness  of 
beauty  to  linger  in  it.  There  was  so  great  an  in- 
finity in  the  beauty  of  the  world  that  to  mingle  up 


220  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

in  its  pursuit  the  delaying  pressure  of  the  sorrow  of 
humanity  was  not  right  for  him.  He  was  bound  to 
leave  behind  him  this  phase,  in  which  humanity  was 
added  to  nature,  for  new  loveliness  unstained  by 
human  pain. 

'  I  look  not  for  happiness  if  it  be  not  in  the 
present  hour.  Nothing  startles  me  beyond  the 
moment.  The  setting  sun  will  always  set  me  to 
rights,  or  if  a  sparrow  were  before  my  window  I 
take  part  in  its  existence,  and  pick  about  the  gravel. 
The  first  thing  that  strikes  me  on  hearing  a  mis- 
fortune having  befallen  another,  is  this, — Well,  it 
cannot  be  helped,  he  will  have  the  pleasure  of  trying 
the  resources  of  his  spirit.' 

This  life  in  the  moment,  and  in  the  momentary 
joy  and  movement  of  all  things  in  nature,  was  the 
source  of  his  directness  in  description.  He  was 
wholly  in  the  place,  and  in  the  time,  and  with  the 
thing  of  which  he  wrote  ;  not  confused  by  thoughts 
of  how  the  trees  would  look  in  winter  if  he  saw 
them  in  spring,  or  how  the  clouds  in  the  sky  might 
be  arranged  to-morrow  ;  still  less  confused  by  any 
imputation  of  his  own  feelings  to  nature.  In  earlier 
days  he  did  use  what  Ruskin  calls  the  pathetic 
fallacy,  but  not  now.  What  was^  was  enough,  nay 
more  than  he  wanted; — and  it  is  our  want  of 
imagination,  of  copiousness  of  heart,  of  clear  sight 
and  of  fulness  of  life,  that  sends  us  into  the  past 
or  into  the  future  or  into  our  own  soul,  when 
we  are  in  the  midst  of  any  present  beauty.  I 
think  it  is  due  to  this  unconfusion  of  impression 


KEATS  221 

that  Keats's  imagination  has  room  and  capacity  to 
make  those  fine  impersonations  of  nature  which 
since  Spenser  have  never  been  so  well  done.  In 
truth  they  are  finer  than  those  of  Spenser.  If  he 
had  been  worried  as  Coleridge  was  with  considering 
his  past ;  if  he  had  been  tormented  like  Byron  with 
his  own  unpleasant  present ;  if  he  had  had  a  philo- 
sophic theory  of  nature  like  Wordsworth  or  Shelley 
to  steal  in  and  out  of  his  imagination,  he  could  never 
have  realised  so  well  the  very  life  of  autumn,  the 
everyday  wanderings  and  fancies  of  the  third  spirit 
of  the  year. 

Who  hath  not  seen  thee  oft  amid  thy  store  ? 

Sometimes  whoever  seeks  abroad  may  find 
Thee  sitting  careless  on  a  granary  floor, 

Thy  hair  soft-lifted  by  the  winnowing  wind ; 
Or  on  a  half-reap'd  furrow  sound  asleep, 

Drows'd  with  the  fume  of  poppies,  while  thy  hook 

Spares  the  next  swath  and  all  its  twined  flowers : 
And  sometime  like  a  gleaner,  thou  dost  keep 

Steady  thy  laden  head  across  a  brook ; 

Or  by  a  cyder-press,  with  patient  look. 

Thou  watchest  the  last  oozings,  hours  by  hours. 

'  Where  are  the  songs  of  Spring  ? '  he  fancies  that  some 
one  asks.  ^  Ay,  where  are  they  ?  '  Keats  answers  in 
half-sarcastic  fashion.  Why  talk  now  of  spring  ? 
we  are  in  autumn  ; 

Think  not  of  them,  thou  hast  thy  music  too, 

and  he  flies  into  a  vivid  description  of  the  soul  of 
the  season.  This  joy  in  the  present,  this  isolation 
of  the  beauty  of  the  hour,  this  making  of  it  a  divine 


222  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

possession,  and  losing  in  its  loveliness  the  pain  of 
life,  is  one  of  the  chief  marks  of  his  genius. 

'  In  truth  the  great  elements  we  know  of  are  no  mean 
comforters ;  the  open  sky  sits  on  our  senses  like  a  sapphire 
crown ;  the  air  is  our  robe  of  state ;  the  earth  is  our 
throne,  and  the  sea  a  mighty  minstrel  playing  before  it, 
able,  like  David's  harp,  to  make  such  a  one  as  you  forget 
almost  the  tempest  cares  of  life.  I  have  found  in  the 
ocean  music — varying  (the  self-same)  more  than  the 
passion  of  Timotheus — an  enjoyment  not  to  be  put  into 
words.'  — 

If  we  think  that  Keats  ought  not  to  have  been 
content  with  this  ;  that  he  ought  to  have  added  to 
enjoyment  science,  balanced  beauty  with  a  weight 
of  knowledge  ;  the  answer  is  that  he  was,  in  one 
half  of  his  nature,  not  content  with  it.  He  did 
desire  to  add  knowledge  to  beauty,  to  find  truth  at 
one  with  loveliness,  to  feel  with  man's  tragedy  while 
he  enjoyed  the  universe.  We  meet  this  desire  again 
and  again  in  his  letters ;  and  when  the  knowledge 
he  sought  for  was  the  knowledge  of  more  beauty  in 
the  great  stories  of  mankind,  in  the  great  tragedy 
of  the  passions  of  men,  it  was  right  to  seek  for  it. 
But  to  know  things  that  were  not  beautiful  would 
have  done  him  no  good.  The  thoughts  he  had 
that  this  life  of  his  was  idle  were  idle  thoughts.  It 
might  be  said  of  Keats — They  also  serve  who  only 
feel  and  love.  There  are  those  v^ho  are  like  the 
lilies  of  the  field,  who  by  being  beautiful  teach  the 
world  what  beauty  is,  and  they  bring  as  much  bless- 
ing and  good  to  others  as  the  great  workers  do  who 


KEATS  223 

face  and  heal  the  miseries  of  men.  They,  like  Keats, 
think  often  they  ought  to  be  up  and  doing  work, 
and  sharing  in  the  tragedy  of  life.  But  they  have 
not  that  power,  and  if  they  leave  their  own  work  for 
the  other  work,  they  make  the  great  mistake.^  They 
cannot  help  practically,  dreadful  disease  and  pain  and 
misery,  and  these  terrible  things  disturb  and  injure 
the  delicate  nature  by  which  they,  in  their  own  way, 
heal  and  comfort  the  world.  They  ought  to  cling 
to  their  own  nature,  and  live  it  out  for  that  part  of 
the  world  which  their  nature-  is  fit  to  help.  If  they 
live  only  in  selfish  seclusion  of  thought,  without 
any  impulse  of  love,  they  lose  their  power.  With- 
out love  the  finest  nature  in  the  world  rots  away. 
But  if  a  tender  love  of  being  beautiful  like  the  lilies 
of  the  field,  and  of  manifesting  beauty  for  the  sake 
of  the  world — in  order  to  help,  delight,  and  console 
the  weary,  to  bring  the  power  of  loving  loveliness 
to  those  who  are  blind — if  this  be  at  the  root  of 
their  life  and  work,  as  it  was  with  Keats,  then  the 
less  they  have  to  do  with  fierce  and  terrible  misery, 
and  the  less  knowledge  they  have  of  it,  the  better. 
Let  them  keep  to  the  exercise  of  their  own  powers. 
If  they  do  not,  they  will  lose  or  weaken  those  powers. 
When  Keats  allowed  himself  to  strive  for  knowledge 
of  the  tragedy  of  man,  he  was  not  strong  enough  for 
it,  and  his  poetic  power  lost  its  full  beauty.  The 
recast  of  Hyperion  is  a  sad  example  of  this.  When 
he  met  the  misery  of  a  futile  love,  and  the  misery  of 
a  fatal  disease,  his  nature  and  his  poetry  broke  down 
into  failure  and  silence.     It  is  the  high  vocation  of 


224  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

some  to  be  a  lily  of  the  field.     It  Is  at  their  peril 
that  they  wish  to  be  an  ear  of  wheat. 

When  Keats  was  as  yet  untroubled  he  saw  this 
clearly.  One  night  he  fretted  after  knowledge,  but 
with  the  morning  came  better  and  truer  thoughts. 
He  heard  the  thrush  singing  outside  his  window, 
and  the  thrush  told  him  true. 

O  fret  not  after  knowledge  !      I  have  none, 
And  yet  my  song  comes  native  with  the  warmth. 
O  fret  not  after  knowledge !      I  have  none, 
And  yet  the  evening  listens.     He  who  saddens 
At  thought  of  idleness  cannot  be  idle. 
And  he 's  awake  who  thinks  himself  asleep. 

All  the  world  is  sorry  that  he  could  not  have 
escaped  from  this  cruel  knowledge.  Illness  came, 
and  ill-fortuned  passion,  and  the  weight  of  the 
world's  distress.  This  bright  Faun  of  poetry  felt 
the  pain  whose  only  healing  is  immortality. 

The  pursuit  by  Keats  of  beauty  In  nature,  and 
of  the  truth  of  it,  was  in  accord  with  the  poetic 
tendency  of  his  time.  To  love  nature  for  her  own 
sake  had  now  become  one  of  the  impulses,  one 
of  the  special  qualities  of  English  song.  And  he 
studied  nature  in  England,  though  he  wrote  of  it  in 
other  lands  and  times.  Through  all  his  work — 
In  Endymion^  In  Hyperion^  everywhere — the  scenery 
Is  English  scenery.  If  ever  any  one  among  our 
poets  studied  nature  In  the  open,  and  not  In  the 
studio,  it  was  Keats.  More  directly,  more  con- 
cisely,  with    less    of   encumbering    theories,    self- 


KEATS  225 

thoughts,  symbolic  fancies,  than  either  Wordsworth, 
Shelley,  Coleridge,  or  Byron,  he  drew  directly  from 
nature  herself. 

To  find  this  beauty  was  easy  to  him.  He  had 
great  powers  for  its  discovery.  He  had  a  deep 
tenderness,  subtle  sensibility,  and  nothing  escaped 
his  quick  and  observing  eyes.  What  was  seen, 
instantly  awoke  its  corresponding  emotion.  In 
one  moment  his  heart  rose  to  welcome  the  new 
guest,  and  to  surround  it  with  images  which  multi- 
plied like  a  crowd  about  it.  But  that  power  is 
not  enough  to  make  a  poet.  There  are  hundreds 
who  possess  it,  and  cannot  use  it.  But  what  Keats 
saw  and  felt  he  could  shape,  and  with  swiftness  and 
rapture.  Then,  he  had  multitudes  of  words  at  hand, 
all  clamouring  to  be  used,  and  he  could  select  the 
fittest  and  the  most  magical.  There  are  fine  sur- 
prises of  charming  expression  which  meet  us  con- 
tinually in  Endymion  when  he  is  writing  about  nature, 
and  which  in  spite  of  the  faults  of  that  poem  make 
it  a  delightful  companion.  Nor  did  the  power — an 
unchartered,  dissipated  power — shown  in  Endymion 
remain  as  it  was  then.  It  freed  itself  from  its 
weaknesses.  It  grew  nobly,  and  into  splendour. 
There  is,  in  his  later  work  on  nature,  a  great 
nobility  of  phrase,  of  a  strange  enchanting  simpli- 
city, as  if  nature  herself  had  discovered  the  right 
word  for  him,  which  is  the  reason,  I  suppose,  why 
Matthew  Arnold  has  said  that  he  is  with  Shake- 
speare. In  that,  perhaps,  with  Shakespeare !  But 
in  the  rest  ? — and  how  much  is  that  rest ! 


226  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

I  give  one  example  of  this  high  simplicity,  direct- 
ness, conciseness,  and  strange  beauty  in  description 
of  nature — Shakespeare  could  not  have  bettered  it, 
but  of  what  use  is  such  comparison  ?  It  is  different 
at  every  point  from  Shakespeare's  way.  It  is  Keats, 
and  of  no  other  temper  and  style  than  his.  More- 
over, it  is  essentially  modern.  There  are  centuries 
between  its  method  and  manner  and  those  of  the 
natural  description  of  Shakespeare.  Lorenzo's  ghost 
is  speaking  and  tells  of  his  grave. 

Saying  moreover,  '  Isabel,  my  sweet ! 

Red  whortle-berries  droop  above  my  head, 
And  a  large  flint-stone  weighs  upon  my  feet ; 

Around  me  beeches  and  high  chestnuts  shed 
Their  leaves  and  prickly  nuts  ;  a  sheep-fold  bleat 

Comes  from  beyond  the  river  to  my  bed : 
Go,  shed  one  tear  upon  my  heather-bloom. 
And  it  shall  comfort  me  within  the  tomb.' 

Then,  starting  from  those  last  two  lines,  and  in  his 
later  way  of  work,  he  weaves  in  and  out  with  the  land- 
scape the  sorrow  of  humanity.  The  quiet  scene  is 
now  veiled  with  deep  regret  and  lonely  pain.  Shake- 
speare did  not  do  this.  He  fitted  his  landscape  to 
the  passions  of  his  characters  and  his  subject ;  but 
the  landscape  was  not  part  of  them ;  it  was  a 
background  only,  suitable,  but  distinct.  But  here 
Lorenzo's  sorrow  pervades  the  scenery. 

*  I  am  a  shadow  now,  alas  !  alas  ! 

Upon  the  skirts  of  human  nature  dwelling 
Alone  :  I  chant  alone  the  holy  mass. 

While  little  sounds  of  life  are  round  me  knelling. 


KEATS  227 

And  glossy  bees  at  noon  do  fieldward  pass, 

And  many  a  chapel  bell  the  hour  is  telling, 
Paining  me  through :  those  sounds  grow  strange  to  me, 
And  thou  art  distant  in  Humanity.' 

The  lines  have  their  own  mystic,  magic  beauty  of 
thought,  of  images,  of  sound ;  but  how  unlike  Shake- 
speare, how  essentially  his  own  !  The  atmosphere 
which  they  create  is  not  of  this  earth,  but  of  the 
world  of  vision  ;  and  their  voice  is  ghostly,  high, 
thin,  clear,  not  to  be  heard  of  mortal  ear,  unless  in 
dreams. 

Along  with  these  qualities  he  had  another 
special  quality  of  genius  ;  it  was  a  swiftness,  almost 
an  unexampled  swiftness,  of  giving  form  to  the 
things  that  he  imagined.  It  is  told  of  the  Ode  to 
a  Nightingale  that  it  was  begun  and  finished  in  two 
or  three  hours  after  breakfast.  The  dedication  to 
the  volume  of  Poems  was  written  while  his  friends 
waited.  Some  of  his  finest  work  came  in  a  moment 
in  language  as  natural  as  '  leaves  to  a  tree.'  '  I 
have,  for  the  most  part,'  he  says,  '  dashed  off  my 
lines  in  a  hurry.'  Such  swiftness  rarely  produces 
good  work.  But  when  the  work  is  good,  as  with 
Mozart  whose  speed  was  astonishing,  it  proves 
genius  of  a  very  high  power.  Few  poets  have 
combined  swiftness  and  excellence.  Shelley  did  so 
rarely ;  he  corrected  and  re-corrected  his  first  drafts. 
But  Keats  poured  out  noble  poetry,  in  lovely  form, 
in  an  hour  or  two.  The  Ode  to  a  ISightingale  is 
scarcely  changed  from  the  original  draft; — and 
such  swiftness  with  excellence  is  a  wonderful  thing. 


228  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

It  is  the  carelessness  of  one  who  had  a  thousand 
poems  within  him ;  whose  inward  waters  were  so 
full  and  copious  that  he  felt  no  need  to  store  up 
those  he  had  created. 

We  may  trace,  also,  this  predominant  love  and 
pursuit  of  beauty  through  his  poetic  work  on 
humanity.  Keats  loved  to  find  beauty  in  the  great 
romantic  tales  of  the  world,  in  the  days  and  deeds 
of  chivalry,  into  whose  spacious  realm,  among  en- 
chanted forests  where  knights  and  maidens  met, 
and  satyrs  of  Greece  and  fairies  of  a  later  world 
abode  together,  Spenser  led  him  when  he  was  young. 
But  he  did  not  imitate  Spenser  ;  he  did  not  mingle 
together  the  Greek  and  the  mediaeval  world.  He 
had  been  ^in  love  before,  and  it  was  with  the 
beautiful  mythology  of  Greece.'  Therefore  we  had 
first  Endymton^  with  a  love  story  of  a  goddess  and 
a  shepherd  in  woods  and  caves  and  mountain 
meadows.  And,  as  if  that  were  not  enough,  he 
led  us  in  the  poem  through  the  depths  of  the  sea, 
to  pity  all  the  lovers  who  had  died  in  its  cold 
waters,  and  to  rejoice  at  their  resurrection.  Then 
we  were  taken  into  the  darker  side  of  human  life 
in  Greece,  the  weird  and  later  legend  of  Lamia  ; 
where  the  ancient  serpent  superstition  which  came 
from  the  Aryan  home  is  linked  to  the  love  of  woman, 
to  the  decay  of  sensuous  joy,  to  the  misery  of  fate. 
The  reason  of  the  world  is  against  the  isolation 
sensuous  passion  creates  ;  and  its  beauty  challenges 
doom.     When  science  concentrates  this  reason  of 


KEATS  229 

the  world,  without  pity,  on  such  beauty,  it  withers 
away.  Those  are  the  thoughts  of  it,  and  in  it 
Keats  went  deep  into  the  heart  of  men  when  they 
are  young. 

Then  came  Hyperion^  a  more  solemn  poem,  as  if 
the  awe  of  his  own  fate  brooded  over  him,  the 
tragedy  of  a  great  ruin,  the  sorrow  of  gods  dis- 
possessed. Byron  was  not  very  wrong  when  he 
said  it  was  like  jEschylus.  Like  ^schylus  in  a 
way — in  a  certain  antique  grandeur  of  conception, 
but  in  all  the  thinking  and  feeling,  in  all  the  scenery, 
and  in  the  overladen  verse,  as  unlike  ^schylus  as 
possible.  All  through  it,  also,  more  soft  and  sweeter 
beauty,  more  of  beauty  for  its  own  sake,  a  greater 
cry  for  it,  a  greater  passionateness  of  expression 
than  ever  belonged  to  any  of  the  ancients,  to  whom 
depth  of  humanity  was  more  than  any  loveliness, 
to  whom  the  long-winding  music  of  Keats  would 
have  seemed  intemperate. 

Mingled  with  these  Greek  stories  were  other 
stories,  nearer  at  hand,  where  he  pursued  beauty 
into  the  tales  of  romance,  of  romantic  sorrow  in 
Isabella,  of  romantic  joy  in  St.  Agnes  Eve,  both 
warm  throughout,  one  with  the  love  which  dies  of 
love,  the  other  with  the  love  which  lives  for  love. 

And  all  these  stories  were  to  him  alive  with  the 
beauty  of  great  humanity.  But  while  he  pursued 
this  beauty  in  far-off,  lovely  stories  of  human  passion, 
it  came  into  his  mind,  that  as  he  should  not  have 
neglected  knowledge  when  he  was  dreaming  of  love- 
liness in  nature,  so  he  ought  not  to  neglect,  when 


230  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

following  beauty  in  human  lives,  to  speak  directly 
of  the  moral  and  spiritual  life  which  was  at  the 
top  of  things,  nor  fail  in  that  sympathy  with  all 
humanity  which  had  belonged  to  the  imperial  poets, 
and  which,  were  he  to  become  great,  should  also 
belong  to  him.  Many  phrases  which  speak  of  this 
thought  occur  in  his  letters.  I  am  not  all  I  ought 
to  be,  he  seems  to  say,  I  am  but  one  of  the  lower 
poets,  for  I  am  not  moved  enough  with  the  pains 
and  joys  of  all  men.  My  love  of  beauty  makes  me 
want  sympathy.  I  am  less  than  the  great  ones  of 
the  earth,  because  I  have  not  communion  enough 
with  men.  Unlike  Shelley,  then,  who,  as  he  lived 
longer,  wished  to  recede  from  men,  Keats  looked 
forward  to  doing  work  which  should  bring  him 
closer  to  men.  It  is  the  mark  of  his  greatness  of 
character  that  he  saw  so  clearly  what  his  poetry 
needed  to  make  him  the  lofty  poet. 

Forgetting  the  great  end 

Of  Poesy,  that  it  should  be  a  friend 

To  soothe  the  cares  and  Hft  the  thought  of  men. 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  second  version  of 
Hyperion  which  puts  clearly  this  position  of  his  soul. 
He  enters,  in  his  dream,  into  a  vast  sanctuary,  and 
sees  a  veiled  goddess  enthroned  at  the  top  of  a  lofty 
flight  of  steps,  and  hears  a  voice  which  says : 

If  thou  canst  not  ascend 
These  steps,  die  on  the  marble  where  thou  art. 

The  goddess  is  she  who   in  the  first  Hyperion  has 
been  Mnemosyne,  who  teaches  Apollo  how  to  sing 


KEATS  231 

the  fates  of  men  which  she  remembers.  She  is  then 
Memory  and  Poesy  combined  ;  and  to  reach  her  feet 
and  receive  her  inspiration  is  to  become  a  poet. 
But  here  she  is  called  Moneta,  and  the  name 
suggests  one  who  warns  and  teaches  the  poet  to  be 
at  one  with  all  the  passions  of  men,  with  their  strife 
for  the  highest,  with  their  daily  life.  Keats  pictures 
himself  as  scarcely  worthy  or  able  to  approach  her, 
because  he  has  not  enough  of  humanity  in  his  work. 
He  almost  dies  before  he  mounts  the  steps.  But 
because  he  has  not  only  lived  for  beauty  and  for 
himself  with  her,  but  has  also,  even  in  this  self- 
isolation,  desired  greatly  to  leave  himself  behind  and 
to  sing  the  fates  of  men,  to  love  the  spirit  of  beauty 
in  human  sorrow  and  joy — he,  though  a  dreamer, 
does  not  die  upon  the  floor  of  the  temple,  but 
looks  into  Moneta's  eyes  that  he  may  receive  her 
power.  Here  are  the  lines  in  which  he  sketches 
himself : 

*  Holy  Power,' 
Cried  I,  approaching  near  the  horned  shrine, 

*  What  am  I  that  should  so  be  saved  from  death  ? 
What  am  I  that  another  death  come  not 

To  choke  my  utterance,  sacrilegious,  here  ? ' 

Then  said  the  veilM  shadow  :  *  Thou  hast  felt 

What  'tis  to  die  and  live  again  before 

Thy  fated  hour  ;  that  thou  hast  power  to  do  so 

Is  thine  own  safety  ;  thou  hast  dated  on 

Thy  doom.'     *  High  Prophetess,'  said  I,  <  purge  off, 

Benign,  if  so  it  please  thee,  my  mind's  film.' 

« None  can  usurp  this  height,'  returned  that  shade, 

*  But  those  to  whom  the  miseries  of  the  world 
Are  misery,  and  will  not  let  them  rest. 


232  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

All  else  who  find  a  haven  in  the  world, 

Where  they  may  thoughtless  sleep  away  their  days, 

If  by  a  chance  into  this  fame  they  come, 

Rot  on  the  pavement  where  thou  rottedst  half.' 

<  Are  there  not  thousands  in  the  world,'  said  I, 

Encouraged  by  the  sooth  voice  of  the  shade, 

'  Who  love  their  fellows  even  to  the  death. 

Who  feel  the  giant  agony  of  the  world 

And  more,  like  slaves  to  poor  humanity. 

Labour  for  mortal  good  ?  I  sure  should  see 

Other  men  here,  but  I  am  here  alone.' 

'  Those  whom  thou  spakest  of  are  no  visionaries,' 

Rejoin'd  that  voice,  '  they  are  no  dreamers  weak ; 

They  seek  no  wonder  but  the  human  face 

No  music  but  a  happy-noted  voice : 

They  come  not  here,  they  have  no  thought  to  come  ; 

And  thou  art  here,  for  thou  art  less  than  they. 

What  benefit  canst  thou  do,  or  all  thy  tribe. 

To  the  great  world  ?     Thou  art  a  dreaming  thing, 

A  fever  of  thyself:  think  of  the  earth; 

What  bliss,  even  in  hope,  is  there  for  thee  ? 

What  haven  ?  every  creature  hath  its  home. 

Every  sole  man  hath  days  of  joy  and  pain. 

Whether  his  labours  be  sublime  or  low — 

The  pain  alone,  the  joy  alone,  distinct : 

Only  the  dreamer  venoms  all  his  days. 

Bearing  more  woe  than  all  his  sins  deserve. 

Therefore,  that  happiness  be  somewhat  shared, 

Such  things  as  thou  art  are  admitted  oft 

Into  like  gardens  thou  didst  pass  erewhile. 

And  suffered  in  these  temples :  for  that  cause 

Thou  standest  safe  beneath  this  statue's  knees.' 

This  was  his  image  of  himself  as  a  poet  when  he 
had  finished  Hyperion^  and,  in  passionate  desire  to 
reach  that  higher  level  of  song,  where  humanity  is 
the  theme,  he  cries — 


KEATS  233 

Shade  of  Memory ! 
Let  me  behold,  according  as  thou  saidst, 
What  in  thy  brain  so  ferments  to  and  fro. 

What  ferments  there  is  the  whole  history  of  the  past 
of  man — that  mighty  tale  which  Keats  desired  to 
write,  but  had  not  yet  the  power.  It  is  to  begin 
with  the  history  of  the  fall  of  the  Titans,  and  the 
advent  to  power  of  the  gods  of  Greece — the  con- 
quest of  a  lesser  beauty  by  a  higher — and  Keats 
now  begins,  after  this  new  preamble,  the  recast  of 
what  he  had  already  done  in  Hyperion.  The  recast 
broke  off  suddenly ;  he  had  not  the  heart  to  go  on 
with  it.  But  in  the  original  poem  we  are  carried 
on  to  the  meeting  of  Apollo  with  Mnemosyne,  of 
the  god  of  poetry  with  the  goddess  who  holds  in 
her  memory  the  whole  history  of  mankind,  and  holds 
it  in  a  sympathy  as  vast  as  her  knowledge  of  it. 

Keats,  in  the  words  of  Apollo,  there  describes  the 
passion  for  knowledge  of  all  human  history  which 
has  seized  on  him,  and  of  which  he  desires  to  sing  ; 
but  chiefly  for  knowledge  of  what  men  have  done 
and  suffered,  created  and  destroyed,  aspired  to  and 
failed  in.  He  is  torn  and  rent  by  the  passion  of  it. 
The  goddess,  merciless  to  his  pain  that  he  may  reach 
creative  joy,  fills  his  aching  and  fearless  ignorance 
with  her  memories — and  what  Apollo  cries  is  what 
Keats  desired  to  feel  : 

Knowledge  enormous  makes  a  God  of  me. 
Names,  deeds,  gray  legends,  dire  events,  rebellions. 
Majesties,  sovran  voices,  agonies, 
Creations  and  destroyings,  all  at  once 


234  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

Pour  into  the  wide  hollows  of  my  brain, 
And  deify  me,  as  if  some  blithe  wine 
Or  bright  elixir  peerless  I  had  drunk. 
And  so  become  immortal. 

He  would  be  impassioned  with  humanity.  Never- 
theless he  recognised  that  this  was  not  yet  his  path  ; 
that  he  must  wait  for  greater  strength.  He  had 
seen  a  higher  ideal,  and,  with  that  grave  modesty 
that  belonged  to  him,  resolved  to  pursue  it,  but 
not  yet.  It  was  an  envious  fate  that  forbade  the 
world  that  pleasure  and  that  use.  Yet  I  doubt  he 
would  have  had  the  power  to  reach  the  heights  he 
saw.  There  was  not  enough  iron  in  his  nature.  It 
may  have  been  well  that  he  died  so  saon. 

With  all  this  new  aspiration  he  had  not  let  go  his 
clear  conception  that  beauty,  such  as  he  conceived  it 
— the  abstract  idea  of  beauty  in  all  things — was  the 
summit  and  crown  of  all  a  poet's  aim.  But  he  now 
identified  beauty  with  truth,  and  out  of  them,  when 
together  and  at  one,  proceeded  power.  All  things 
must  bow  to  the  highest  beauty.  When  it  was  seen, 
truth  was  seen  and  power  came.  That  was  his  last 
thought  ;  that  the  law  of  the  whole  universe.  And 
splendidly  he  expressed  it  in  Hyperion. 

Saturn  the  dethroned  goes  to  visit  his  brother 
Titans  in  the  vast  cave  where  they  lie,  fallen  and 
desolate,  after  their  overthrow  by  the  younger  gods, 
and  he  asks  their  counsel.  They  rise  one  after 
another  to  speak,  and  all  their  speech  is  of  wonder 
and  anger  at  their  ruin.  At  last  Oceanus,  in  whose 
face  Saturn,  astonished,  sees  severe  content,  takes  a 


KEATS  235 

different  view,  and  his  thought  is  the  finest  motive 
in  Hyperion.  In  it  Keats  also  declares  his  inmost 
thought.  Oceanus  tells  the  Titans  that  they  must 
be  content  to  fall ;  and  that,  when  they  have  seen  the 
reason  of  their  overthrow,  they  will  arrive  at  the 
rigid  truth,  and  in  grasping  truth  be  satisfied,  as  he 
is  satisfied.  They  have  fallen  by  course  of  nature's 
law,  not  by  their  conquerors  : 

Now  comes  the  pain  of  truth,  to  whom  'tis  pain ; 
O  folly !   for  to  bear  all  naked  truths, 
And  to  envisage  circumstance,  all  calm, 
That  is  the  top  of  sovereignty. 

And  this  is  the  law — that  as  Heaven  and  Earth 
overthrew  Chaos  and  Darkness  because  they  were 
fairer  than  Chaos  and  Darkness,  and  we,  the  Titans, 
overthrew  Heaven  and  Earth  because  we  were  more 
beautiful  than  they. 

So  on  our  heels  a  fresh  perfection  treads, 
A  power  more  strong  in  beauty,  born  of  us 
And  fated  to  excel  us. 

Our  dispossessors  tower  above  us  in  loveliness, 
therefore  they 

must  reign 
In  right  thereof;  for  'tis  the  eternal  law 
That  first  in  beauty  should  be  first  in  might. 

Then  he  breaks  out,  impassioned,  eager  to  prove 
his  point  : 

Have  ye  beheld  the  young  God  of  the  Seas, 
My  dispossessor  ?     Have  ye  seen  his  face  ? 
Have  ye  beheld  his  chariot,  foam'd  along 
By  noble  winged  creatures  he  hath  made 


236  STUDIES  IN  POETRY    ' 

I  saw  him  on  the  calmed  waters  scud, 
With  such  a  glow  of  beauty  in  his  eyes, 
That  it  enforced  me  to  bid  sad  farewell 
To  all  my  empire :  farewell  sad  I  took. 
And  hither  came,  to  see  how  dolorous  fate 
Had  wrought  upon  ye  ;  and  how  I  might  best 
Give  consolation  in  this  woe  extreme. 
Receive  the  truth,  and  let  it  be  your  balm. 

Impossible  to  resist  that  loveliness  !  It  forced  him 
to  give  way  ;  he  accepted  the  truth  of  things. 

Still  finer,  on  the  same  thought,  is  the  wild,  sad 
speech  of  Clymene.  She  does  not  argue,  like 
Oceanus,  with  the  philosophy  of  fatalism,  but  she 
feels  the  same  truth.  The  beauty  which  is  beyond 
her  power  to  create,  breaks  her  heart  with  pain,  and 
breaks  it  again  with  joy.  She  hears  Apollo  play, 
and  as  she  hears,  she  knows,  since  the  music  is 
lovelier  than  aught  the  Titans  can  make,  that  all 
hope  of  empire  is  gone  from  them  for  ever. 

Standing  on  a  pleasant  shore,  Clymene  took  a 
shell,  and  breathed  into  it  the  music  of  their  woes, 
when  suddenly 

from  a  bowery  strand 
Just  opposite,  an  island  of  the  sea, 
There  came  enchantment  with  the  shifting  wind, 
That  did  both  drown  and  keep  alive  my  ears. 
I  threw  my  shell  away  upon  the  sand, 
And  a  wave  filled  it,  as  my  sense  was  fill'd 
With  that  new  blissful  golden  melody. 

Joy  filled  her  with  its  beauty,  then  grief  conquered 
joy,  for  in  its  beauty  she  felt  the  doom  of  all  she 
loved,  and  then  a  voice  came, 


KEATS  237 

sweeter  than  all  tune. 
And  still  it  cried,  *  Apollo  !  young  Apollo  ! 
The  morning-bright  Apollo  !   young  Apollo  ! ' 

and  she  fled  away,  knowing  that  loveliness  had 
overcome  their  world. 

In  the  last  book  the  same  thought  occurs  again. 
We  find  Mnemosyne  in  Delos,  watching  over  the 
youth  of  Apollo.  She  has  left  the  Titans,  ravished 
with  his  beauty,  to  add  all  her  ancient  power  to  his 
tuneful  youth. 

Show  thy  heart's  secret  to  an  ancient  Power 
Who  hath  forsaken  old  and  sacred  thrones 
For  prophecies  of  thee,  and  for  the  sake 
Of  loveliness  new-born. 

Beauty,  then,  and  power  are  linked  together. 
Where  there  is  the  highest  beauty  there  is  of  neces- 
sity the  greatest  power.  It  is  the  instinct  of  all 
spirits  to  bow  unquestioning  to  beauty,  if  they  have 
the  heart  to  see  it.  This  is  Keats's  second  law. 
The  first  is  that  truth  and  beauty  are  one.  Yet  the 
two  laws  are  one  law.  For  beauty  is  the  form  that 
truth  takes — its  eternal  Logos  ;  and  when  all  the 
world,  feeling  its  supremacy,  acknowledges  and 
worships  perfect  beauty,  it  acknowledges  and  wor- 
ships the  divine  essence  out  of  which  beauty  rises 
into  form — the  essence  of  absolute  truth.  That 
was  the  last  thought  of  Keats  upon  this  matter — 
truth,  beauty,  power — a  co-equal  trinity. 

Of  the  earlier  poems  of  1 8 1 7  there  is  not  much 


238  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

to  say.  They  proclaim  the  influence  of  Spenser, 
Chapman,  Milton,  Fletcher,  Browne,  Chatterton, 
and  far  too  much  of  Leigh  Hunt — a  good  and 
faithful  friend^ — upon  him.  They  prove  him  to 
have  been  alive  at  every  point  to  impressions  on  all 
the  senses,  and  these  impressions  are  expressed  with 
a  minute  and  rejoicing  skill,  and  frequently  with  an 
exquisiteness  which,  though  it  continually  ran  into 
sentimentalism,  prophesied  in  lovely  and  concinnate 
lines  the  future  and  almost  unique  excellence  of  his 
poetic  wording.  Even  before  he  finished  these 
poems,  there  are  not  only  many  lines,  but  even 
whole  poem^like  the  noble  sonnet  to  Chapman's 
Homer,  whim  tell  us  that  he  was  not  only  escaping 
from  a  false  and  fantastic  sentimentalism,  from  a 
vulgar  treatment  of  love  and  of  womanhood,  from 
an  over-lusciousness  of  epithet  and  versing,  into  a 
stronger,  truer,  more  critical,  more  tender,  more 
thoughtful  art,  but  also  that  his  view  of  what  ought 
to  be  done  by  poetry,  and  felt  by  the  poet,  what  he 
ought  to  love,  aim  at,  and  delight  in,  had  entirely 
changed.  He  desired  knowledge  with  which  to 
weight  poetry,  and  sympathy  with  humanity  with 
which  to  make  it  tender  with  love,  rich  with  the 

giving  of  pleasure — 

a  friend 
To  soothe  the  cares  and  lift  the  thoughts  of  men. 

All  his  thoughts  on  this  matter  are  detailed  in  Sleep 
and  Poetry^  the  last  of  the  poems  of  this  first  volume. 
He  realised  that  this  lofty  aim  should  be  his,  but  he 
was  as  yet  unable  to  fulfil  it.    Beauty  alone  had  as  yet 


KEATS  239 

an  exclusive  power  over  him,  and  Endymioftj  with  all 
its  Ideal  aim,  does  not  fulfil  or  embody  his  aspiration. 
It  has  been  analysed  and  represented  as  an 
allegory.  I  do  not  think  the  poem  was  written 
with  that  intention,  but  what  he  thought  and  felt  as 
he  wrote  may  perhaps  be  fairly  wrought  by  others 
into  an  allegory.  '  Before  I  began  I  had  no  inward 
feeling,'  Keats  says, '  of  being  able  to  finish ;  as  I  pro- 
ceeded my  steps  were  all  uncertain.'  And  the  whole 
of  the  poem  is  a  confirmation  of  this  statement.  It 
bears  the  same  relation  to  a  well-constructed  poem 
that  a  gipsy's  wanderings  bear  to  an  ordered  voyage 
with  a  single  aim.  The  gipsy  wearies  at  last  and 
rests,  and  so  does  Keats.  The  last  book  of  the 
poem  is  quite  inferior,  with  a  few  exceptions,  to  the 
others.  The  faults  of  bad  taste,  carelessness,  and 
indifference  are  more  glaring  than  in  the  previous 
books,  and  the  conception  of  the  subject  and  its 
treatment  are  not  only  troubled,  but  wrong  in  art. 
It  is  plain  that  Keats  was  weary  of  this  work  of  his. 
Yet  In  the  very  midst  of  it,  is  that  song  of  the  Indian 
maid,  describing  the  conquest  of  the  East  by  Bacchus 
and  his  crew,  enriched  with  glowing  colour,  reminis- 
cent of  Titian's  picture,  full  of  the  energy  of  genius, 
and  enraptured,  as  It  were,  with  its  own  melodies. 
There  is  no  weariness  in  it,  as  in  the  rest  of  the 
book.  Out  of  that  weariness  proceeded  the  Preface 
of  the  poem.  It  Is  a  model  of  quiet,  even  of  stately, 
self-judgment  ;  conscious  of  power,  but  of  power 
which  had  not  been  sufficiently  educated  ;  conscious 
too  that  in  writing  Endymion  he  had  learnt  his  faults. 


240  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

and  was  now  capable  of  better  work.  No  criticism 
of  the  poem  can  be  truer  than  that  which  he  made 
himself  In  this  Preface,  with  a  steadfast  good  sense 
as  rare  as  it  is  interesting. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  all  such  criticism,  it  seems  almost 
incredible  that  there  were  persons  who  had  no  ears 
for  the  melody  of  the  poem,  and  no  apprehension  of 
the  pure  gold  of  poetry  lavished  through  it  with  a 
reckless,  unrestrained  profusion.  It  is  full  of  noble 
passages,  like  the  brief,  solemn  appearance  of  Cybele, 
like  the  dell  where  Endymion  and  Peona  speak,  like 
the  great  ocean  cavern,  places  and  images  which 
Keats  saw  more  clearly  than  he  saw  an  earthly  land- 
scape, and,  seeing,  had  the  power  to  paint  them. 
It  is  full  of  lovely,  isolated  lines,  far,  far  above  in 
power  and  beauty  those  in  which  they  are  embedded  ; 
prophetic  of  the  Odes  ;  strong  or  sweet,  soft  as 
grass,  sonorous  as  thunder,  which,  as  they  fall  on 
the  ear,  seem  to  live  and  breathe  with  the  life  of  that 
they  celebrate.  A  few  have  passed  into  common 
quotation,  but  there  are  many  hidden  away  like 
violets  in  their  leaves — and  there  are  too  many 
leaves.  The  Hymn  to  Pan,  in  the  first  book,  ought 
to  have  been  enough  to  tell  the  critics  that  an 
original  poet  had  arisen  in  England.  It  may  be  a 
little  too  long,  but  he  would  be  a  bold  man  who 
should  wish  any  of  it  away.  Even  where  it  is  weak 
it  is  marked  by  that  imaginative  excellence  of  im- 
personation of  the  powers  of  nature  in  which  Keats 
excelled.  It  prophesies  the  greatness  and  beauty  of 
the  Odes  he  was  to  write  hereafter. 


KEATS  241 

When  he  published  again  it  was  with  Lamia^ 
Isabella^  The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes^  and  Other  Poems^  in 
1820.  Lamia  and  Hyperion  {Hyperion  closes  the 
volume)  return  to  Greek  subjects ;  Isabella  and  St. 
Agnes  s  Eve  belong  to  mediasval  story. 

When  we  pass  from  Endymion  to  Lamia  we  pass 
from  an  ill-constructed,  over-fantastic  poem  to  a 
poem  in  which  the  construction  is  excellent  and  the 
divagations  of  the  fancy  strictly  limited.  Keats  had 
become  a  conscious  artist^  comprehending  and  obey- 
ing the  laws  of  his  art.  It  was,  of  course,  natural 
that  he  should  grow  into  this,  but  he  was  much  helped 
thereto  by  his  study  of  Dryden,  whose  Fables  are 
excellent  models  of  the  construction  and  conduct  of 
the  narrative  poem.  Every  now  and  then  we  hear 
in  the  verse  the  'loud  resounding  pace'  of  the  steeds 
whose  necks  were  '  clothed  in  thunder.' 

The  story  is  Greek  enough,  and  belongs  to  that 
strange  underworld  of  nature  where  Greek  super- 
stition, among  the  ignorant,  feared,  and  luxuriated 
— a  world  of  strange  metamorphoses  or  ghastly 
terrors  whose  indwellers  enslaved  or  maddened  the 
minds  of  men.  The  woman  who  became  a  serpent 
and  who  could  become  a  woman  again,  who  en- 
thralled with  love  the  mortal  she  loved,  and  built 
around  him  a  world  of  illusion,  was  one  of  these. 
This  fatal  witch,  her  piteous  passion  and  its  miser- 
able close,  seized  on  the  imagination  of  Keats.  He 
added  to  it  pity  and  love  ;  pity  for  the  serpent- 
woman  because  she  loved,  as  well  as  for  her  lover  to 
whom  her  love  brought  death.     He  added  to  her 


242  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

I 

also  a  strange  psychical  power.  While  she  lay 
couched  in  her  forest  brake,  she  had  power  to  send 
forth  her  spirit  from  herself  where  she  willed,  over 
all  the  worlds  of  gods  and  men,  and  to  bring  back 
to  her  lonely  dwelling  all  she  saw  and  felt  in  her 
wanderings.  This  Keats  invented  for  her,  and  it 
lifts  her  above  the  commonplace  of  superstition  into 
spiritual  power,  and  dignifies  the  poem.  It  is  also 
interesting  to  see  what  the  story  becomes  when 
passed  through  the  modern  imagination  of  Keats 
and  through  his  childlike  ignorance  of  classic  life 
and  the  classic  temper.  It  is  extraordinarily  naif, 
and  in  this  naivete  it  is  perhaps  nearer  to  Greek 
reality  than  a  scholar  would  have  made  it,  whose 
knowledge  would  have  troubled  and  complicated  his 
execution.  The  story  remains  quite  simple  in  the 
verse  of  Keats. 

Only  twice  or  thrice  does  a  modern  note  intrude 
and  jar,  and  all  the  more  because  the  note  has  that 
strange  vulgarity  which  sometimes  jumps  up  like  a 
demon  in  Keats's  poetry.  It  seems  incredible  that 
he  should  have  written  these  passages,  much  more 
that  he  should  not  have  erased  them.  There  are 
also  here  and  there  romantic  borrowings,  that  is, 
borrowing  not  from  real  romance,  but  from  his  own 
shaping  of  romance,  so  that  we  seem  to  hear  an  echo 
from  Isabella  or  from  St.  Agnes' s  Eve,  But  for  the 
most  part  it  is  quite  Greek  enough  to  place  us  in 
Corinth  among  the  unphilosophic  people,  who  lived 
in  wealthy  houses  and  indulged  their  senses  with 
beauty  and  knew  not  our  moralities.     Its  charming 


KEATS  243 

opening,  with  the  tale  of  Hermes  and  the  invisible 
nymph,  shows  how  rapidly  Keats  had  grown  in  power 
of  noble  versing,  and  In  restraint  of  fancy,  and  in 
omission  of  the  needless,  since  he  wrote  Endymion  ; 
and  the  excellence  Is  steady  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end.  So  much  has  been  written,  and  so  well, 
on  its  melodious,  lovely,  and  surprising  phrasing,  that 
it  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  upon  this,  but  I  do  not 
know  if  enough  attention  has  been  drawn  to  Keats's 
curious  love  of  colour,  which,  subtle  and  Inquisitive 
In  Endymion^  Is  almost  rapturous  in  The  Eve  of  St, 
Agnes^  and,  in  jets.  In  Lamia.  It  Is  not,  however, 
so  much  the  colour  of  the  landscape  or  the  sky  on 
which  he  dwells,  as  the  colour  of  jewels  and  tapes- 
tries, and  illuminated  books  and  dress,  and  fruits, 
and  rich  dark  woods  In  panelled  rooms.  He  has 
the  same  pleasure  In  these  things  as  Morris  and 
Rossetti  had,  and  the  same  power  of  describing 
them.  It  Is  almost  with  exultation  that  he  describes 
In  Lamia  the  colours  of  the  serpent  and  those  of 
the  hall  decorated  for  the  marriage.  Every  one 
knows  the  colour-music  of  the  scene  In  Madeline's 
chamber.  In  Endymion  the  colour-painting  shares 
In  the  confused  extravagance  of  the  rest  of  the 
poem.  It  Is  flung  here  and  there  without  order  or 
clearness,  with  no  sense  of  '  values.'  In  Hyperion 
it  Is  In  harmony  with  the  subject ;  and  In  the  Odes 
and  Sonnets  It  Is  lovely. 

Isabella^  or  The  Pot  of  Basil  is  taken  from  a  story 
In  the  Decameron.  It  Is  strange  to  contrast  Its  over- 
sugared  sentiment  with  the  frank  and   masculine 


244  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

way  in  which  Boccaccio  tells  the  tale.  The  contrast 
favours  the  Italian,  but  In  the  difference  lies  this  ad- 
vantage— that  the  version  of  Keats  Is  made  thereby- 
original.  He  has  reconcelved  the  characters,  brought 
into  the  story  a  new  temper  of  the  mind.  Invented 
a  new  scenery,  and  wrapt  it  round  and  round  with  a 
subtle,  separate,  scented  atmosphere  which  enters  Into 
every  line  of  the  poem,  and  isolates  into  Its  special  air 
the  Imagination  of  every  reader.  The  rhythm  of  the 
verse,  the  arrangement  of  words,  the  language  used, 
the  style,  which  Is  subtly  different  from  that  of  ^he 
Eve  of  St,  Agnes^  are  all  charged  heavily  with  the 
same  peculiar  sentiment.  This  settles  the  poem  into 
an  artistic  unity.  There  are  flaws,  however,  in  this 
unity.  The  description  of  the  brothers  as  men  of 
dreadful  greed,  as  manufacturers  who  drove  their 
labourers  all  over  the  world  to  death,  is  quite  un- 
medlaeval  and  places  us  in  modern  England  and 
America.  The  talk  of  Lorenzo  and  Isabella  is 
sometimes  quite  below  the  just  level  of  poetry,  and 
there  is  one  terrible  stanza.  But  these  are  sllglit 
stains,  and  though  they  jar,  they  jar  chiefly  because 
the  rest  is  so  curiously  beautiful  in  feeling  and  in 
expression. 

The  poem  is  passionate  enough,  but  the  passion 
is  felt  by  two  weak  characters,  and  shares  In  their 
feebleness.  It  has  great  pathos  but  no  strength, 
wild  emotion  but  not  deep  emotion.  The  two 
lovers  were  too  weak  in  character  to  reach  the 
depths  of  passion.  But  this  is  rather  an  excellence 
than  a  fault  in  the  artist.    He  had  conceived  them 


KEATS  245 

as  weak.  Had  their  passion  been  profound,  it  would 
not  have  fitted  their  characters.  Keats  has  kept 
them  carefully  within  the  limits  of  their  nature  ;  but 
within  those  limits  their  passion — with  a  few  start- 
ling exceptions  where  the  language  becomes  too 
'  precious ' — is  of  a  curious,  lonely,  perfumed,  and 
forlorn  loveliness  which  is  brought  up  to  the  edge 
of  cloying,  but  does  not  pass  over  it.  And  this  Is 
done  with  exquisite  and  unconscious  skill,  and  is 
supported  and  strengthened  by  an  equally  exquisite 
choice  and  use  of  words,  as  happy  as  they  are  sur- 
prising. This  power  over  noble,  fitting,  and  sur- 
prising words  belongs  to  all  his  great  poems,  and  it 
is  nowhere  better  than  In  The  Eve  of  St.  Jgnes. 

That  poem  is  of  a  finer  quality  than  Isabella.  In 
Isabella^  Keats  has  written  from  one  part  of  his 
nature  alone,  from  the  part  which  tended  to  sentl- 
mentalism  in  love  and  preciosity  in  expression — 
abundance  of  which  Is  to  be  found  In  Endymion. 
In  Endymion  the  work  is  broken,  unequal,  over- 
strained, but  always  poetical.  In  Isabella,  all  that 
belonged  to  this  part  of  his  nature,  all  the  elements 
that  found  imperfect  expression  In  Endymion^  are 
expressed  almost  to  perfection.  It  is  a  triumph  In 
this  kind  of  verse,  but  the  kind  does  not  belong  to 
the  nobler  forms  of  poetry. 

In  T^he  Eve  of  St.  Agnes  he  still  writes  from  this 
side  of  his  nature,  but  he  writes  also  from  the 
stronger,  healthier,  and  more  joyous  side.  And  the 
mingling  of  the  two,  each  confirming  and  balancing 
the  other,  each  entering  like  two   spirits   into  his 


246  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

imagination,  and  working  in  it  like  Eros  and 
Bacchus — pure  love  and  emancipating  rapture — 
hand  in  hand,  has  produced  a  poem,  in  which  there 
is  no  jarring  note,  of  a  singular  loveliness,  and  in 
one  of  those  untrodden  regions  of  the  art,  wherein  so 
many  poets  would  fain  enter,  but  have  not  the  power. 
The  story  has  the  immense  merit  of  improbability. 
We  are  in  such  a  world  as  we  find  in  the  French 
romances — set  free,  while  we  read,  from  the  whole 
of  the  modern  world,  and  greatly  blest  thereby. 
The  scenery,  the  climate,  the  imaginative  atmo- 
sphere, were  all  created  in  the  soul  of  Keats  as  his 
subject  seized  it,  and  they  entered  into  the  verse, 
into  its  every  cadence,  and  never  left  it  from  end  to 
end.  The  poem  is  like  a  crystal  sphere  in  which 
changing  imageries  arise  and  pass  away,  incessantly 
shifting  ;  and  it  is  surrounded  by  an  aura  of  its  own 
that  isolates  it  in  poetry.  Indeed,  this  is  a  charac- 
teristic of  all  the  best  poems  of  Keats,  and  is  more 
true  of  him  than  of  other  poets  of  his  time,  except 
perhaps  of  Wordsworth  when  he  is  dwelling,  as  he 
writes,  in  the  innermost  simplicity  of  his  art. 

In  T^he  Eve  of  St.  Agnes  the  curious  beauty  of  the 
words,  their  natural  selection,  the  survival  of  the 
fittest,  their  out -of- the -world  note,  their  sweet, 
changeful,  and  elfin  music,  are  in  the  closest  harmony 
with  the  romantic  tale  and  its  wild  scenery,  with 
Porphyro  riding  across  the  moor  with  his  heart  on 
fire,  with  Madeline,  like  Keats  himself,  *  asleep  in 
lap  of  legends  old.'  The  scenery  is  not  described 
but  suggested,  and  follows  the  reader  throughout 


KEATS  247 

the  poem.  The  bitter  frost,  the  rising  storm,  the 
bright  moonlight  seen  at  intervals  through  the 
driving  clouds  of  flaw-blown  sleet,  the  wild  wind 
through  which  the  lovers  ride  away  over  the  black 
moor,  are  heard,  in  happy  contrast,  outside  the 
warm  chamber  of  Madeline,  the  quiet  nest  of 
tender,  pure,  youthful  passion  ;  and  the  silence  and 
ardour  of  it  is  set  over  against  the  rude  stones  of 
the  castle,  the  dying  age  of  the  beadsman  and  the 
nurse,  against  the  riotous  feast  and  the  shouting  of 
the  hall.  Every  one  has  dwelt  on  the  unpremedi- 
tated excellence  of  the  contrasts  of  the  poem. 

I  suppose  we  may  call  it  mediaeval.  But  it  is 
mediaevalism  seen  through  the  magical  mist  of  the 
imagination  of  Keats,  and  in  the  mist  the  nature  of 
Keats  is  playing  like  a  child  in  a  garden.  There  is 
then  a  little  air  of  modern  feeling  blowing  hither 
and  thither  through  the  mediaevalism.  Being  so 
little,  it  does  not  injure  the  main  impression,  but 
adds  a  touch  of  remote  charm  to  it,  a  scent  as  from 
a  far-oflT  land  which  comes  and  goes  momentarily. 

Above  all  these  excellent  things  in  beauty  and 
colour  and  force  is  the  loving  of  the  lovers,  and  the 
scenery  of  its  passion.  It  is  the  beating  heart  of  the 
poem.  It  needs  no  words  to  praise  its  ardour, 
purity,  and  tenderness.  And  it  is  set  in  beauty. 
It  was  daring  of  Keats  to  encompass  it  with  such 
elaborate  scenery.  The  rich  description  of  the 
casement  and  its  devices,  of  the  moonlight  pouring 
through  the  dim  room,  of  the  ^  delicates  '  aglow  with 
colour  on  cloths  of  woven  crimson,  gold,  and  jet,  of 


248  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

perfumes,  and  tapestries,  and  music  of  the  lute, 
might,  in  other  hands,  have  taken  the  reader  too  far 
away  from  the  lovers  and  their  love,  from  the  quint- 
essence of  the  subject.  But  it  does  not ;  it  enhances 
its  beauty,  it  frames  perfectly  its  tenderness. 

It  is  a  great  pity  that  Keats  did  not  finish  the 
other  mediaeval  poem  he  projected,  of  which  we 
have  only  about  a  hundred  lines — The  Eve  of  St. 
Mark.  In  its  rhythm,  feeling,  and  manner  it 
is  so  like  William  Morris's  work  that  it  would 
seem  as  if  he  had  heard  its  melodies  and  seen  its 
pictures  in  his  heart.  The  description  of  the 
mediaeval  city,  of  Bertha's  room  and  its  furniture 
and  books,  of  the  minster  seen  from  her  window, 
are  as  warm  with  the  firelight  and  the  scent  of 
ancient  rooms,  as  the  city  streets,  and  arched 
porches,  and  the  pious  folk  travelling  to  the  minster 
service,  are  chill  in  the  April  evening.  And  Bertha, 
within  her  panelled  chamber,  in  which  we  breathe  ' 
the  dim  air  of  a  quiet  mediaeval  home,  is  a  still, 
dreamy,  shadow-haunted  burgher-maiden,  worthy 
of  her  room,  of  her  missal,  and  of  the  minster 
square.  Like  all  the  finer  poems  of  Keats,  its 
atmosphere  is  of  an  isolated  and  solitary  beauty. 

La  Belle  Dame  sans  merely  which  is  not  quite  a 
ballad,  but  which  Keats,  when  he  invented  it,  called 
a  *  ditty '  and  derived  from  Provence,  recalls  the 
motive  of  the  Tannhauser  story,  and  belongs  to  his 
imaginative  mediasvalism.  It  is  a  beautiful,  fantastic 
thing,  but  it  has  been  praised  beyond  its  worth. 
"^The  skill  with  which  each  verse  is  closed  by  a  line 


KEATS  249 

of  four  strong  syllables  accents  each  step  of  the 
tragic  mystery.  The  poem  suggests  passion,  but  is 
not  passionate.  Its  magic  strangeness  is  curiously 
increased  by  lines  which  have  no  connection  with 
those  that  precede  them — 

O  what  can  ail  thee,  Knight  at  arms, 
So  haggard  and  so  woe-begone  ? 

The  Squirrel's  granary  is  full, 
And  the  harvest 's  done. 

It  is  pure  poetry,  but  not  to  be  classed  with 
poems  like  the  Ode  to  a  Klightingale,  It  is,  how- 
ever, of  a  unique  originality,  and  instinct  with  an 
imagining  power  which — both  in  the  landscape,  in 
the  presentation  of  the  faery  woman  into  whom 
the  Venus  of  the  Venus  Berg  has  descended,  and 
in  its  wild  mingling  of  the  preternatural  with  the 
natural,  every  detail  of  which  is  cumulative — awakens 
wonder  and  pleasure  in  that  region  of  the  soul  which 
wanders  from  reality. 

The  best  examples  of  the  Odes  need  neither  praise 
nor  blame.  They  are  above  criticism,  pure  gold  of 
poetry — virgin  gold.  Of  them  it  may  be  said — with 
all  reverence  yet  with  justice,  for  these  high  things 
of  poetry  come  forth  from  the  spiritual  depths  of 
man — The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and  thou 
canst  not  tell  whence  it  cometh  or  whither  it  goeth 
— so  is  every  poem  that  is  born  of  the  spirit. 

As  to  Hyperion^  with  which  Keats's  last  volume 
closed,  it  is  nobly  conceived  and  wonderfully  sup- 
ported.   It  is  hard  to  write  about  the  Titans  titanic- 


250  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

ally,  yet  Keats  has  done  it.  The  great  figures  of 
Saturn,  Oceanus,  Hyperion,  in  stately  ruin,  remain 
great  and  stately  to  the  end.  The  images  of  the 
younger  gods,  of  Neptune  and  Apollo,  with  victory, 
radiant  joy,  and  beauty  pouring  forth  from  them  on 
all  things  like  morning  light,  are  in  splendid  contrast 
to  the  giant  sorrows  of  Saturn  and  his  comrades.  I 
would  give  much  to  possess  from  Keats  the  meeting 
of  Apollo  and  Hyperion  on  the  palace  platform 
before  the  gates.  There  would  have  been  no  battle. 
Hyperion  would  have  yielded,  like  Mnemosyne,  to 
loveliness,  youth,  and  music — to  incarnate  Poetry. 
But,  if  Keats  were  to  write  the  rest  in  the  same 
temper  as  he  wrote  the  recast  of  Hyperion^  I  am 
glad  he  did  not  finish  it.  I  have  dwelt  on  this 
recast  already.  It  is  interesting  as  a  revelation  of 
his  aims  as  a  poet,  but  it  is  a  pity  that  he  took  to 
self-analysis.  Had  it  persisted  it  would  have  spoiled 
his  poetry.  One  of  his  greatest  excellences  was  that 
he  lost  himself  in  the  objects  he  loved  and  in  the^ 
subjects  which  seized  on  his  imagination  ;  and  self- 
analysis  wears  away  the  power  of  losing  self  in  joy. 
That  excellence  would  have  departed  or  been  in- 
jured. Nor  has  self-analysis  any  beauty  in  it,  and 
Keats,  the  lover  of  beauty,  would  have  lost  in  con- 
tact with  himself  the  quintessence  of  his  poetry. 
As  to  his  aims  as  a  poet,  also  revealed  in  this  recast, 
they  were  more  than  he  was  capable  of  fulfilling. 
They  were  an  ideal  which  he  early  conceived.  They 
appear  in  Sleep  and  Poetry^  they  are  perhaps  symbol- 
ised in  Endymion^  but  he  had  the  great  good  fortune, 


KEATS  251 

in  a  time  of  health  and  natural  vigour,  to  get  rid  of 
them,  and  to  write  Lamia,  Isabella,  The  Eve  of  St. 
Agnes y  and  Hyperion  without  being  troubled  by  them. 
It  was  well  for  Keats  to  nourish  the  ideal  he  imaged 
to  himself;  but  it  is  also  well  to  understand  how 
far  one  has  capacity  to  realise  it,  how  much  of  it  our 
personal  powers  enable  us  to  embody,  and,  if  one 
is  an  artist,  whether  any  embodiment  of  it  in  our 
special  art  will  not  jar  or  interfere  with  that 
which  is  most  excellent  in  that  art.  Keats  did  not 
consider  this,  or  if  he  did,  he  was  led  away  from 
its  consideration.  He  should  have  realised  his 
limits  and  been  content  with  them.  He  never  could 
have  become  one  of  the  imperial  poets  to  whom 
humanity  was  open  to  its  depths.  He  felt  that  all 
along.  It  was  only  at  the  close  that  he  reproached 
himself  for  not  trying  to  do  what  he  was  unable 
by  nature  to  do.  Had  he  not  loved  foolishly  and 
morbidly,  had  he  been  well  in  body,  he  would  never 
have  written  the  beginning  of  the  Fall  of  Hyperion, 
and  made  the  unhappy  change  of  Mnemosyne  into 
Moneta.  But  ill-love  and  ill-health  drove  him 
inside  of  himself;  and  therein,  for  all  of  us,  there  is 
neither  peace  nor  joy  nor  beauty. 

But  of  the  earlier  Hyperion  these  things  cannot  be 
said.  It  is  written  within  his  limits,  and  without 
any  serious  purpose  outside  of  the  subject.  Its 
seriousness  and  purpose  is  in  the  subject,  not 
dragged  into  it  from  any  ideal  in  some  remote 
chamber  of  the  soul  of  Keats.  It  sees  with  the 
clearest  vision,  and   records  in  the   clearest  words 


252  STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

the  characters  and  the  figures  he  conceives,  and  the 
landscape  In  which  they  rest,  and  does  not,  as  In 
Endymion^  deviate  Into  side  issues  which  worry  the 
impression  of  the  whole.  The  care,  the  curious 
choice  of  felicitous  phrase,  the  rejection  of  all  that 
is  needless,  the  concentration  of  images,  the  steady 
level  of  the  verse,  and  its  elaborate  but  easy  melodies, 
show  how  very  great  in  two  or  three  years  only 
was  the  advance  of  Keats  in  his  chosen  art.  They 
represent  not  only  its  unceasing  practice,  but  its 
industrious,  constant,  and  purposeful  thought. 

Even  more  noble  than  these  artist-powers,  are 
the  spiritual  powers  of  the  poem — invention  which 
almost  never  fails,  imagination  which  creates  and 
shapes  and  burns  like  an  unconsuming  fire  in  the 
landscape,  in  the  characters.  In  their  action,  in  their 
speech;  which  seems  to  grasp  the  very  life  which 
resides  in  words,  and  forces  them  to  speak  and  move. 
And  through  the  whole,  one  thing  is  pre-eminent, 
one  thing  subdues  the  too  much  and  exalts  the  too 
little,  pervades,  ennobles,  penetrates,  and  bears  the 
whole  into  immortality — the  love  of  Beauty,  which 
is  the  love  of  Love. 

And  then  he  passed  away  to  find  pure  loveliness, 
but  the  path  by  which  he  went  was  strewn  with  pain. 
No  end  was  more  piteous  than  his,  or  more  distress- 
ful. Very  sorrowful  and  bitter  was  his  pain  of 
heart.  As  bitter  was  the  slow  suffering  of  his  body. 
Yet  he  was  brave  and  patient  at  the  close,  and 
always  in  love  with  things  which  were  fair  and 
simple,  of  good  report,  gentle,  of  virtue,  and  worthy 


KEATS  253 

of  praise.  As  he  drew  near  to  death  his  mind  grew 
in  quietness  and  peace.  The  tempest  of  his  passion- 
ate love  ceased  to  blow  within  him. 

Two  friends  alone,  but  they,  as  tender  as  Cor- 
delia, lived  for  him  and  tended  him  to  the  last ;  but 
it  is  beyond  all  noble  compassion  to  think  that  the 
lover  of  beauty  died  in  his  youth,  while  as  yet  his 
revelation  to  us  was  but  begun.  Yet  loveliness  was 
in  his  heart.  '  I  feel  the  flowers  growing  over  me,' 
he  murmured  once,  when  very  near  to  death,  and 
the  saying  is  full  of  the  woodland  spirit  that  breathes 
through  all  his  verse.  Nor  need  we  mourn  too 
much.  He  is  at  home  with  the  King  in  his  beauty, 
in  that  land  which  is  not  so  very  far  off  as  the 
prophet  thought  it  then. 

On  his  grave  the  words  he  chose  himself  are 
carved,  *  Here  lies  one  whose  name  was  writ  in 
water.'  The  water  flows  in  all  our  hearts  ;  and  in 
the  meadows  within,  where  we  walk  when  we  are 
alone,  there  are  a  thousand  flowers,  born  and 
nourished  by  his  sweet  and  songful  streams. 


Printed  by  T.  and  A.  Constable,  Printers  to  His  Majesty 
at  the  Edinburgh  University  Press 


0J' 


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